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Unforseen opportunity: improved services migrate from
document supply to distance education
Kathryn Pearson
Abstract | Paper in
Portable Document Format (PDF) Presentation in Microsoft® PowerPoint®
format
The late 1990's and early 2000's
have seen a fundamental shift in higher education in Australia. Gone are the
days when the customer was a nuisance and the shared belief of librarians was
to avoid spoonfeeding and concentrate on educating. Partly due to the
information explosion and partly due to changed economic circumstances in
Australian higher education, a strong ethos of customer service and ease of
access has emerged in university libraries. Whilst the push for information
literacy is stronger than ever, there is a new recognition that students have
busy lives, often juggling family, study and work. Librarians are realising
that it is a responsibility to provide quick and easy access to information,
particularly for postgraduate students.
Macquarie University Library has
been working on the LIDDAS project since it's inception as a way of automating
the interlibrary loan procedure, streamlining interlibrary loan work and
improving services to customers. The project has been lengthy due to the
complexity of the software. However, the software has now been implemented in
Document Supply and is working well.
The success of the LIDDAS
implementation has prompted us to think of other applications for the software.
From a starting point of wanting to offer better turnaround time for our
distance education students, we are now beginning to use the vdx software to
offer improved services to all postgraduate students, whether they are distance
education students or they live down the road.
This paper discusses the progress
of the LIDDAS project and looks at the way the software developed for this
project is now affording opportunities for enhanced service delivery beyond the
narrow confines of interlibrary loan. |