What I Learned at ILLiad
Last week I attended the International ILLiad Conference in Virginia Beach! Between playing Minute To Win It games, showing a snazzy poster, and chillin with Neptune I learned a thing or two about how to use certain features in ILLiad and what enhancements are coming.
ILLiad and WorldShare moving to a cloud based web app
OCLC and Atlas is looking into creating a combined cloud based web app. Very little information has been given other than they are looking into creating this new ILLiad/WorldShare hybrid. If you are interested in working on this and possibly being an early adopter of this new program contact Katie Birch at birchk@oclc.org.
IFM Refunds
OCLC will soon allow you to refund IFM charges without creating a dummy request.
Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States
The Interlibrary Loan Code has been around since 1916 and revisions are currently being handled by STARS and RUSA. Like the Pirate Code the ILL Code is a system of guidelines and not legally binding rules, that being said it is a great guide on how to make sure your ILL department plays well with others. The code was recently updated and Brian Miller from the revision committee gave an explanation of the new changes. Some notable changes include:
- The due date has been clarified as the date the patron needs to return the book to the borrowing library. We no longer need to adjust due dates to allow extra shipping time.
- Staples are strongly discouraged because they can damage books or hurt people while opening packaging. On a personal note I have a scar from a rogue staple on an ILL package.
- Scans should appear as close to the original as possible. Scanning in color is encouraged for pages with pictures or graphs. Black and White copies often turn the image into a black blob.
As I am sure you are all aware, there are many other less memorable guidelines in this code.
Statistics
I learned two things on statistics that really impressed me. The first piece of advice given was to make the stats visually appealing. When a librarian is handed a spreadsheet with thousands of numbers they will likely be overwhelmed and will forget about your stats almost immediately. Not only should the stats be clean and have colorful graphs but they should use graphic design elements such as lightly textured backgrounds and pictures to pull the reader in. There are many free programs to create PDF's, infographics, and booklets to show off your statistics in a memorable way. The other thing I learned about are Custom Request Searches in ILLiad. While many library folk at the conference knew about Custom Request Searches about half had never heard of this handy dandy feature. By clicking the small arrows on the ILLiad Home tab you can access a search function to create very detailed ILLiad stats. Once you decide which conditions and filters to use ILLiad will generate a spreadsheet for you to download and use as a basis for your statistics reports.
Poster Session
Before the poster session began I took pictures of many of the posters so I could refer to them later. Below is a slideshow of all the pictures.
