Notes from Discussion Groups: Objective 6. Expand and coordinate document delivery services to facilitate use of both digital and analog information.

Group #2880
Facilitator: Kathy Chiang
Note-taker: Mary Patterson
LMT: Anne Kenney
Attending: Carmen Blankinship, Julie Copenhagen, Susan Greaves, Eileen Keating, Jesse Koennecke, Terry Kristensen, Joanne Leary, Patricia Schafer, Donald Schnedeker, Lynn Thitchener, Sharon Wargo, Mary Wesche

The objective and its Implementation

  • Identify users to be served
  • Increase programming and staff support
  • Determine the easiest interface for user
    • one page entry
    • no need to supply credit card/payment
    • GET IT button
  • Monitor usage, adjust fee as necessary
  • Do we limit this to current Cornell community, or, do we expand this out to alumni?
    • Suggest that CUL look at use of commercial services to acquire copy for Alumni and Friends; that may be cheaper than getting through ILL.
    • What is a Cornell person? How is the person identified, through Voyager, through other university personnel databases.
    • What other delivery services, and document delivery services exist now:
    • Law Library – free document delivery to faculty, within 2 hrs.
    • JGSM – free document delivery to faculty and staff in building
  • What is our vision of simplification? Challenges and problems?
    • There is no GET IT button at present.
    • We have multiple services, listed on multiple pages; users have to open each one, read it and decide which to use.
    • It is not clear that most pages are to be used to get what CUL DOES NOT OWN.
  • A GET IT button would simplify requests for the user. They would not have to decide if we own it, don’t own it, or they don’t know. All the searching would be done behind the scenes. From the perspective of the user, no worry about choices—just plug in the citation to the form and the library (or, software) directs the request to the proper path.
  • At CUL every request gets searched. We may not want to deal with the staffing cost implications of a GET IT button at this time.
  • If there is a charge, it is important that the user be made aware of that at the start of the process.
  • Currently, we require multiple different registrations: ILL, Borrow Direct, MyDocument Delivery
  • We need a system /software that can identify different kinds of requests.
  • It is important for users to know at the beginning when (how soon) they can expect an item. For Borrow Direct, this is happening now with the email that is generated by the system.
  • Discussion about fee/free structure:
    • Time is a cost for the user as well as the library. User needs to know what to expect. Example at JGSM: If user requests 1 article, turnaround time is 24-48 hours. But if user requests 15 articles, the turnaround time changes to 1-2 weeks. No staff has been added to operate the new services
    • Should the system be: Full charge? Nominal charge? Cost recovery? Free?
        • Point: Users who walk into the library and make a photocopy, pay with their time and coin.
        • Re: ILL copy free, Annex copy free, My Document Delivery a $$ charge. One rationale for our present charge vs. free is ease/difficulty of access. If something is at the Engineering Library, it is much easier for the patron to get it, than from the Annex or from U. of Minnesota
    • Suggest that we analyze the usage statistics of MyDocument Delivery after 6 months of service using the law of supply and demand—deciding to remove the charge, lower it, or raise it.
    • From an overall perspective of “for the good of the University” and “using its most expensive resources (people) wisely, we suggest that since the university is paying for both faculty time and student time, it would serve the university’s obligation to efficiently shepherd its resources to use student time (money) to make “copies” rather than faculty time (money).
    • The library staff has extensive expertise in certain areas—we are best at searching the library catalog. By providing this service to faculty and promoting our resources to faculty, we achieve a “teaching moment”.
    • If we want to maintain the “fee” we need to find a way around the necessity of putting in a credit card number into each and every request. This is tiresome and cumbersome to faculty. One system that was used in a library for another service is a debit account, where faculty credited the account with a sum once a year, and fees were deducted from that account as the services were provided.
    • Suggest that we communicate with the different departments and colleges about best use of their faculty “time” resources and make a plug for some support from them in terms of student job time dollars.
    • Another factor to be considered in the fee vs. free discussion, is that any fee, even just $1, serves to clarify the “real need” of the user. University of Wisconsin had offered free document delivery, then changed to a $1 charge, and the volume of requests dropped 60%. Universities that provided free photocopying found the same drop in volume occurred when a charge was instituted.
  • We need to itemize the hurdles that users encounter when making requests.
  • Carefully evaluate the changes in procedures that will enlarge the library staff workload.
  • A standardization idea: make one (and only one) Cornell ID necessary to use services, currently there is net ID for MyDocument Delivery and Cornell unique number ID for Interlibrary Loan. We need to partner with CIT and the University personnel database to make this “one ID” happen.
  • We need more overarching coordination and structure within the various CUL service providers, to decide how to sort out and redistribute requests from one input source, the GET IT button.
  • We need to change our front page presentation to users. When they ask for an item, the front end should take them through pertinent questions/pathways: Do you need a book—go here. Do you need a photocopy—go here. Do you need an interlibrary loan—go here. This could be done with a web page.
  • Whether or not we charge a fee, these support needs (staffing, web page design, etc.) need to be sent up to CUL administration before the service is out there and available, rather than the staff having to “wing it”.
  • An important issue--digitization of unique items in collection of RMC, where preservation for future is important.
    • Should we keep (and, do we have the right to keep) items we have scanned for users? Issues:
      • Copyright
      • Quality of scanning (quality tends to be low if scanning is rush-rush for a user)
      • How do we organize such an electronic file; metadata (therefore, staff time) is needed to be able to find an item again.
      • How do we make these electronic files visible to the public?
      • Where do we record it—in the library catalog?
    • We currently use ILL requests to inform Collection Development staff of users research needs. At this time, rather than spending to organize scanned images of miscellaneous journal articles, we should partner with providers such as JSTOR for access to electronic backfiles.
    • If we own the material, such as scanned images created by RMC, then the case is very strong for archiving, cataloging, etc.
  • When copyright is no longer an issue, such as in the case of 19th century books, we need to consider digitizing such books rather than lending the physical item through Interlibrary loan. Digitization protects valuable physical items from damage and from theft. The Hotel School Library compared the items in its cookbook collection with OP dealers prices, and plans to digitize those of high market value, to deal with the issue of theft.

Potential Partners

  • CIT
  • Bursar
  • University accounting
  • Innovative Interfaces,
  • Partners outside Cornell: University of Rochester, invite them to CUL to share their ideas and experiences.
  • Note: We are late to this market.

Measures of Success

  • Can we measure number of requests over time, as a percentage of user population?
  • What does success mean? Need quantity and quality measures.
  • We have a conflict now. In order to reduce costs, we push the work onto the user. We need to find a balance.
  • Politically, when librarians go to their deans to extol new services, that doesn’t carry much weight, but when the deans go to the president and tell him that this service is wonderful, this is meaningful.
  • We can monitor costs and compare our costs with that of other universities.
  • Success is:
    • The user not having to identify the source of what is needed
    • User can copy and paste request in one box
    • Payment route is easy
    • Registration of user is easy and uniform
    • Get rid of multiple user interfaces
    • Use statistical picture of fill rates and turnaround time to evaluate success
  • We do need to acknowledge our progress and success with what we have accomplished so far. Users are extremely pleased with Borrow Direct.
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