National Resource Sharing Working Group Final Forum

Summary of Discussions

Background

The National Resource Sharing Working Group (NRSWG) and National Resource Sharing Policy Committee (NRSPC) were established by the National Library to support the development of a national interlending infrastructure following a series of national meetings and discussions. The Towards Federation Summit in 1992 and National Interlending and Document Delivery Summit of 1995 established a need for discussion between all library sectors on the development of the interlending system. The NRSWG was created in 1999 and the NRSPC in 2000 with a clear agenda to improve the Australian interlending system.

After five years it was timely to review the achievements of the groups and to assess these against their objectives. During the period there have been profound changes in collections with a significant increase in electronic resources available at the desktop, a small increase in automation of interlending and a significant step in implementation of ISO ILL in Kinetica Document Delivery to enable libraries to use their own systems for automating their workflows and extend this to end users.

The Group has taken a number of major steps forward in improving the efficiency of interlending in Australia through the Australian ILRS Code (launched in 2001), its wide acceptance, the benchmarking study, training programs and running conferences and seminars to discuss a variety of models for improved access to resources for end users.

The final meeting included discussions based on specific papers; a paper summarising the achievements of the group, key issues and trends, the ARCLAP study, the work of the Australian Library Collections Task Force and perspectives from all library sectors.

Issues which need to be the subject of further activity were identified and allocated to various groups. A need was identified for an annual review of activity occurring on resource sharing and to ensure that issues truly were addressed. There was a high level of commitment to continue to work on the issues, with referrals to the National Library, ALIA, CASL and other groups. A table summarizing issues and actions is attached and notes on the key issues follow.

Summary of discussions

  • Participation: For the first time public and TAFE libraries were represented at a meeting of the National Resource Sharing Working Group. It is clear that public libraries are increasingly moving to supply resources from beyond just their local networks and are looking forward to actively participating in discussions on resource sharing. They provide a very strong link with end users. The whole library sector is actively involved in resource sharing and future discussions and meetings should include representatives from national, state, academic, research, special, law, health and tafe libraries.
  • Collections: Considerable discussion occurred on issues relating to collections in Australian libraries. The management of collections of libraries which close and trends in reduction of new acquisition because of changed in policies and budgets remain of concern, as these collections need to be offered to other libraries before any disposal takes place. The Australian Research Libraries Collection Analysis Project (ARLCAP, 2004) demonstrated that Australian universities and the National Library’s collections contain many unique resources and poses issues for collection analysis for the future
  • ILRS Code: Recognising that expectations of users and libraries have changed significantly, the group took into account feedback through the NLA Document Supply survey and from various librarians that a 5 level code was too complex and that the 5 day core turnaround time is too slow. This issue was referred to ALIA for review and will clearly need discussion across library sector bodies to ensure that changes can be implemented and enable libraries to continue to operate efficiently.
  • Skills and manuals/documentation: A need was identified for an up to date information package for library staff on interlending and document supply. The most recent edition of the Australian manual, Ausloan, was published over a decade ago. For the national system to operate effectively an updated manual would enable clear information on the code, copyright, and general interlending issues to be available in one place. Work on a manual was referred to the ALIA Interlending Group. Skills training/CPD was also discussed and it was agreed that the development of relevant courses should also be referred to ALIA.
  • National performance indicators and benchmarking: The Interlending benchmarking study has provided great basis for understanding how libraries can be efficient. While the measurement of the improvements in Australian interlibrary lending from implementation of the findings of the study has not been undertaken, the group consider that a manageable way forward would be for a sector to development performance indicators and trial these. CAUL's performance indicator tool includes interlibrary lending; however it was thought that this was inadequate and that CAUL should develop a better set of indicators and measures. This information could be shared with other sectors for implementation across a wider range of libraries through a future meeting.
  • New models: A number of "Borrow direct" type initiatives are being developed in Australia and it was considered important that information on new models and their effects should be explored, but within the existing Australian conference and research reporting framework (including REAP). Christine Cother indicated she would be undertaking some research and it was also agreed that research should be sought on factors affecting demand by end users.
  • Trends: While statistics compiled for the background paper suggest interlending remains in decline, monograph interlending has generally not declined. The impact of changing from the "big deal" for ejournals and the continuing move to interdisciplinary research suggest that the reduction in decline experienced in the past year may be a better predictor of future trends. Monitoring of the impact of direct end user access through services such as Copies Direct is important for the consideration of new services by libraries in all sectors. Unmediated interlibrary loans are likely to be an essential future direction to ensure user satisfaction and consortia are also essential for access to printed as well as electronic collections.

In summary the major themes were the need for increased resource discovery (through the NBD), acquisition of collections (particularly with library closures), capability building (training and manuals), information on performance and an urgent need to review the ILRS Code to improve speed of delivery and intelligibility of service levels.

The suggestion of an annual sharing of information and reporting on activities through a meeting convened at the National Library would provide an opportunity to ensure continued development in this area

Papers and a more detailed summary of the meeting will shortly be available on the web.

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