Sharing resource sharing

2017-05-30 Sharing-Resource-Sharing

Sharing our resource sharing breakthroughs

I’ve been working in interlibrary loan a long time and the collaboration I see within this group of librarians is amazing. Back in March, we held the first OCLC Resource Sharing Conference with the theme of Sharing Breakthroughs. I see this community sharing all the time, whether at an event, via a listserv or just a simple phone call.

A member-driven program committee helped shape the agenda and librarians provided much of the program content. Thank you to all who presented and participated. It was a great example of how well the resource sharing community works together to share and celebrate our breakthroughs.

We’ve posted all presentation recordings, including a wonderful keynote about storytelling from Todd Babiak, on the conference site. I invite you to view them, share them and think about attending or presenting next year. We’re so happy to announce that the conference will take place March 13–15, 2018, at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront in Jacksonville, Florida, USA.

More ways to connect

It’s a busy time for libraries and for the OCLC Resource Sharing Team. In addition to working with the community on events like the OCLC Resource Sharing Conference, we’re engaging with the community as we build Tipasa and continue to migrate ILLiad libraries to this new ILL management system. We’re also reaching out to our VDX and Navigator libraries as we plan for future migration to Relais D2D. There are many opportunities for you to be involved, share your thoughts and help guide the process forward:

  • The OCLC Community Center is a place where members stay on top of news, share questions, provide answers and offer suggestions for future enhancements. There is a community already in place for WorldShare ILL and Tipasa. And we’ll soon be adding a space for ILLiad libraries to discuss Tipasa and migrations.
  • Volunteering for an advisory group or user research allows you to be more deeply involved in the process of service and program development. It’s a great way to meet others in the community and be involved in the earliest stages of bringing new ideas to life. We just completed our year with the phase one Tipasa advisory group and our phase two Tipasa advisory group just began their term.
  • Product Insights webinars put the spotlight on specific services and use cases. We need members of the community to attend these sessions so that we can hear what your goals are and what things you’ve done that really work well.
  • You can also review member stories from other libraries that provide insight into how they’re implementing resource sharing solutions and getting to their own local breakthroughs.

Moving forward together

In the meantime, OCLC ILL staff are excited to be presenters at a number of events this summer. We hope you can join us at one or more of them:

Our resource sharing community has nearly 50 years of shared experience, and that is a critical resource for our future. Our membership is also a passionate and engaged worldwide community that, together, fills an ILL request every two seconds. We will take that experience and passion and use it to build cooperative services and resources that better meet the challenges of an increasingly connected, worldwide audience.

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