Resource Sharing Workgroup Minutes

Present: Becky Croft, Tanzi Merritt, Barb Hale, Pat New, Carolyn Tassie, Nancy Mollette, Charlene Davis, Allen Ashman, Enid Wohlstein

COURIER SERVICE
The changes in the courier delivery schedules that went into effect on July 1 have taken place fairly smoothly. KYVL has received very few reports of missed stops or other problems as a result of the changes. While the number of stops for most libraries remained the same or were reduced, there were a small number of libraries that qualified for an increase in the number of weekly stops. Several of these libraries, however, have chosen to keep not accept the extra service each week. There are also a small number of libraries that have opted to purchase an extra day of service each week in addition to the stops funded by KYVL.

KYVL staff are revisiting all statistics to determine where there are gaps in reporting. Libraries will be asked to resubmit past statistics if possible for months in which they did not previously report.

Concern was expressed that the courier service has been used by some libraries to ship materials that should be shipped by other means. It was determined that the Courier Help Guide or the KYVL website is a bit vague as to the materials that are appropriate for shipping through the courier service, while the Frequently Asked Questions on the KYVL website are clearer. Tanzi will update the Courier Help Guide to be more specific as to the types of materials that are appropriate to ship through the courier service so that there will be no variance in the documents that can lead to confusion.

A message will be sent to the listserv reminding libraries to send extra courier bags back to KYVL for distribution to libraries with a low supply.

SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT
The Service Level Agreements for courier and Ariel service were completed in 1999 and have not been revisited, although the original SLA stated that the agreement would be reviewed on an annual basis. Because individual libraries are responsible at this point for both the upgrade of the Ariel software and Ariel workstations, it was decided that there is no need for a revised SLA for Ariel. An new SLA will be developed that will address only courier service. The new SLA will address the responsibilities of individual libraries that receive courier service, as well as reminding them of National Interlibrary Loan Code. The Courier Help Guide and Frequently Asked Questions will be distributed to the workgroup for review as a precursor to development of the new SLA.

SURVEY
Questions that the group would like to include on a resource sharing survey were discussed. Some of the questions that should be included are:

1. Questions about the online courier pickup record such as - Do you find the form easy to use? Are there any enhancements that could be made to the form?

2. Questions about training, including if they feel it would be beneficial to have training on Interlibrary Loan Code, Copyright, Ariel, Iliad, Union Listings, and Custom Holdings Building.

3. Questions judging satisfaction with the courier service, such as turn-around time, etc.

4. Other questions:

Do you use Union Listing to fill out ILL borrowing requests?
What additional projects would you like the Resource Sharing Work Group to be doing?
Is there more information that you would like to see included on the KYVL Resource Sharing web page?

Bill Hansen should be asked if there are questions that he would like to include that would interest the Kentucky Virtual Library Users' Group. The group will review the survey before it is made available to the public.

NEXT MEETING:

Wednesday, August 27 1:00 to 3:00pm, CPE offices.

Last updated: Tuesday, 09-Sep-2003 15:10:20 EDT