National Resource Sharing Working Group

Minutes of the Second Meeting, 21 July 1999

Attendees

Susan Magnay (Chair) (State Library of New South Wales)

Sue Grimes (Nepean Hospital Library)
Joan Tucker (CAVAL)
Margaret Gauld (University of Queensland)
Christine Cother (University of South Australia)
Toby Burrows (University of Western Australia)
Jody Rodas (Waverley Library)
Cynthia Love (CSIRO Information Technology Services)
Donna Runner (Deakin University - Geelong)
Charu Sood (National Library of Australia)

Apologies

Sharon Howells (University of Newcastle)

1. Welcome

Susan Magnay welcomed the working group members and introduced Maxine Brodie, Acting CEO & State Librarian.

Ms. Brodie welcomed the NRSWG to the State Library of NSW. She assured the group that the Council of Australian State Librarians (CASL) was committed to supporting the work of the Group.

2. Report by Andrew Wells (Assistant Director, National Library of Australia)

Andrew Wells was welcomed to the meeting. He reported that Jan Fullerton would be Acting Director-General of the National Library after Warren Horton's retirement. Ms Fullerton would continue the National Library's strong commitment to the NRSWG.

The National Library wished to propose establishing a Steering Committee for the NRSWG with representation from each of the sponsoring organisations. The main function of the steering committee would be to provide a direct channel for communication and advocacy with the peak industry bodies. The working group agreed that this would be useful in helping to build understanding of and support for the group's work. Mr Wells said that the National Library would invite CAUL, CASL and ALIA to nominate a representative for the Steering Committee. He will be the National Library's representative.

Mr Wells also gave an update on Kinetica Document Delivery (KDD) implementation.

3. Apologies

Sharon Howells (University of Newcastle)

4. Minutes of the last meeting

The minutes of the first meeting, held on 14 May 1999, were confirmed.

5. Matters arising not on the agenda

International ILL issues

Charu Sood gave an update on a number of international ILL issues. Mary Jackson, ARL Access and Delivery Services Consultant, will be visiting Australia briefly in October 1999. Charu will try to organise a half -day seminar in Canberra during Mary's visit for discussion of international ILL issues.
Action: Charu Sood

Charu has provided comment on the IFLA standard format for electronic forms for international ILL requests. IFLA is also investigating an international electronic payments system.

There was some discussion of the difficulties of obtaining loans from US libraries and whether, in future, the Kinetica Document Delivery systems might be used as a gateway for requests to US libraries. Andrew Wells responded that the National Library's focus was on network to network relationships with OCLC and that the administrative overheads of extending KDD for overseas requesting could be high.

6. Correspondence Received

Paper 1: Report of activities and communication since last meeting

Charu commented that one to two messages have been received per day since the DOCLIBS posting. There has been a broad range of comments. Most have been positive about the formation and terms of reference of the working group and supportive of the need for revised standards. Some responders had expressed concern about the representation of the interests of small and special libraries on the working group but had been satisfied once the basis of membership of the group and the commitment to extensive consultation was explained. Other members reported a positive reaction from the library community to the formation of the working group.

7. Progress Report from Co-ordinator - Data Collection Group

Paper 2: Proposal for a survey of ILL practices

It is proposed to address the survey in 2 stages:

  • Stage 1: Development of a proposal for funding of the survey. The draft proposal (Paper 2) should be strengthened to identify more clearly how the research would benefit Australian libraries.
  • Stage 2: Development of the survey instrument After the meeting, members of the Data Collection Group would be meeting informally with Kerrie Burgess, State Library of NSW Research Co-ordinator, who had agreed to advise the group on the framing of the survey proposal.

Action: Data Collection Group

Paper 3: Proposal for a survey of delivery times

It was agreed that the proposed mail delivery time survey should proceed. Participation by NRSWG members would give a good geographic spread. Cynthia Love offered to involve several CSIRO libraries. The survey would provide useful data for the development of performance standards and would also help to raise the profile of the working group. The National Library will co-ordinate the survey.

Action: Charu Sood

8. Progress report from Co-ordinator – Standards group

Paper 4: ILL Standards & ILL Code - a discussion of the issues

There was detailed discussion of the principles which should underlie the development of performances standards, of the service areas which standards might cover and of the IPIG standards and to what extent they might apply in Australia.

Principles to be followed included:

  • standards must provide incentives to improve services
  • links to IPIG profile & ILL protocol
  • broad airing of best practice
  • canvass current thought, opinions, practices
  • infrastructure, such as the ILRS directory, to be used to support service standards.

Areas which performance standards might cover include

  • Turnaround time - standard definition is needed
    A proposed definition is the time between when a supplier receives a request and when the supplier dispatches the request.

  • Response time (for successful and unsuccessful requests) to be defined separately from turnaround time
  • Response must be given
  • Requesting methods accepted
  • Incoming requests - need minimum standard for frequency of reading incoming requests (eg. daily)
  • Time of receipt of request to be defined on incoming message
  • Mandatory information on requests / standardised formats of requests
  • Availability of holdings data
  • Pricing
    • should it be in the code?
    • mechanisms for review variant charges for levels of service
    • simplify charging scales
    • do we really know what costs are?
    • may need some feedback from commercial/corporate, law libraries range of charges preferable to Fast Track and Premium Track levies
    • review fax charges and perhaps eliminate local fax charges or eliminate - fax charges altogether?
    • charges set on basis of what requesting libraries ask for
    • No coupling or close coupling of delivery method & service standard?
  • Principles for unmediated requesting

  • Do we want broad code of principles like the ACLIS Code or more detailed?

  • Accreditation - should there be some form of membership, accreditation or commitment to co-operative participation?
  • Mode of delivery - mandatory field on request form & in ILRS
  • When can a library be a 'library of last resort'

  • Principles for licenses for full-text electronic resources to allow document supply

The IPIG standards define five levels of service:

  1. when convenient
  2. normal
  3. priority
  4. rush
  5. express

The group was concerned about the concept of "when convenient" as a minimum service level as it did not support the principle of standards promoting to service improvement. There was strong support for the "normal" level, defined as one-week turnaround, as the minimum standard.

It was agreed that the group should now begin discussing the development of standards publicly and actively seeking comment and input from libraries across all sectors. Processes for consultation were discussed under Item 9.
Action: Standards group, Consultation group

9. Progress report from Coordinator - Consultation group

Paper 5: Consultation and communication

It was agreed the working group should develop a presentation giving an overview of the terms of reference of the NRSWG and introducing the issues relating to performance standards at forthcoming conferences as outlined in the paper. Members will take responsibility for our presence at conferences as follows:

Special Libraries Conference, Hobart, August - Charu Sood, Cynthia Love, Sue Grimes

RAISS Conference, Sydney, September - Jody Rodas

Library Technicians Conference, Perth, September - Toby Burrows, Christine Cother

CSIRO Librarians, Gold Coast, November - Cynthia Love, Susan Magnay

Public Librarians Conference, Perth, November - Toby Burrows, Jody Rodas, Susan Magnay

ALIA Biennial Conference, Canberra, October 2000 - Susan Magnay, Charu Sood

It might also be possible to hold a half-day document delivery seminar in conjunction with VALA, Melbourne, February 2000.
Action: Susan Magnay, Charu Sood

10. Discussion of strategies for progressing the work of the groups

Covered under Items 7-9.

11. Allocation of tasks

Covered under Items 7-9.

12. Any Other Business

The Working Group wished Jody Rodas well for her forthcoming maternity leave.

Richard Chester was thanked for his assistance as minute taker at the meeting.

13. Date and time of next meeting

To be determined

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