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Opportunities and challenges: The changing face of interlibrary loan and document delivery

Australian libraries have for many years enjoyed a strong national resource sharing network. Key elements in this network are the Australian National Bibliographic Database, which contains more than 40 million location records for items held in Australian library collections, and a national online interlibrary loan and document delivery service, which enables libraries to share collections efficiently.

The National Library provides this infrastructure in the form of the Libraries Australia Search Service and the Kinetica Document Delivery (KDD) Service.

With developments in technology, Australian libraries are now implementing local systems which enable them to fully automate the delivery of documents to their users, from their own and other Australian libraries. Libraries can use their own local systems to exchange requests with the Kinetica Document Delivery Service. Until recently, this interchange was only possible between libraries using the same system as that used by KDD. However, in July the University of Western Sydney became the first library to interchange requests with KDD using a different system. The University of Western Sydney has an outstanding commitment to an efficient document delivery service for its users, and has implemented a new system, based on the latest technology, to take advantage of resource sharing. The National Library has worked closely with the university to ensure that the system effectively connects it to all Australian libraries and suppliers around the world, and congratulates the University of Western Sydney on the successful implementation of the new software to support interlibrary lending and document supply. University of Western Sydney academics, researchers and students will benefit significantly from this new development with a quicker, more user-friendly service.

Staff in Kinetica continue to undergo testing with other libraries and system vendors to enable them to successfully implement their own local systems and benefit from the efficiencies of managing their multiple workflows.

Margaret Kennedy

Acting Director
Libraries Australia Database Services
National Library of Australia