Effective and automated handling of end user requests

Effective and automated handling of end user requests in Danish National Union catalogue 10 th IFLA ILDS Conference 2007 Singapore, 29 th – 31 st October 2007 Anders-Henrik Petersen & Rikke Lose Danish Bibliographic Centre (DBC) ahp@dbc. dk rlo@dbc. dk

Denmark – Northern Europe Inhabitants: 5. 4 mio. National libraries: 2 University and research libraries: 186 Public libraries: 98

Dan. Bib bibliotek. dk • For library professionals • Content: as bibliotek. dk plus records from Library of Congress, BNB, ISSN etc. – for reuse and verification User interface for the professionals • Loan requests: inter library loans (ILL) • For the Danish population • Content: Danish national bibliography + holdings of Danish Libraries User interface: simple and easy – for the general public – English version • Loan requests are sent to the library used by the end -user • http: //bibliotek. dk

Why automate? Manual handling of bibliotek. dk requests And this could be done automatically!

Why automate? Benefits: • Less manual work • Better turnaround time • Better service to end users

Automate what? Let the ILL-server (and not the staff): 1. Find the libraries that have the item 2. Find the library that delivers first, within the time limit specified by the end user 3. Turn the loan request into an ILL-request to the lending library 4. And – the end user is not involved in the ILL-process!

Some issues • • Records covering different editions of same work Type of material Brand new titles Local restrictions in ILL-Policy

Solving the edition problem FRBR-inspired display and ordering of records

Solving the policy issues • Mutual accept • requesting and responding libraries • Each requesting library specifies which libraries to send requests to (or all) • Each library specifies: • Automate or not for each material type • The title must be older than xxx days

Model automated ILL-requests from bibliotek. dk

Results so far Launched 8 th May 2007 Status October 2007: • 104 libaries generate automated ILLRequests (possible: 262) • 101 libaries receive automated ILLRequests (possible: 160)

September 2007 • Requests from bibliotek. dk • • • Total number of requests: 97596 Automated ILL-Requests: 48059 Not automated requests: 41606 Held by users library: 7931 ”Automation ratio”: • 53, 5 % 48059*2/60 = 1600 hrs. of work saved

September 2007 - public libraries Hvidovre Public Library • Total bibliotek. dk-requests: 940 • From this, automated requets: 602 • That is 64% Copenhagen Public Library • Total bibliotek. dk-requests: 9491 • From this, automated requets: 5454 • That is 57%

Further development (2008) Most important: • A new option: only automate the request if the material is on shelf in the responding library • A new option: automate requests for material held in the user’s library if it is not on shelf

Thank you ! Anders-Henrik Petersen & Rikke Lose Danish Bibliographic Centre (DBC) ahp@dbc. dk - rlo@dbc. dk http: //www. dbc. dk - http: //bibliotek. dk http: //www. danbib. dk/index. php? doc=english