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Resource Sharing Consultation Forum 2006

The Resource Sharing Consultation Forum was held at the National Library of Australia on 18 May 2006. It brought together representatives from all library sectors to discuss resource sharing and document delivery issues. It was well attended by librarians from the university, public, state, school, special, government and parliamentary library sectors, representatives from ALIA and the former National Resource Sharing Working Group, as well as staff from the National Library. It proved to be a fruitful and interesting meeting for all.

The Forum was opened by Tony Boston, Assistant Director-General, Resource Sharing Division, on behalf of Director-General Jan Fullerton. A brief review of actions and issues arising from the last National Resource Sharing Working Group Final Forum, held in July 2004, took place. After that came one of the highlights of the Forum—the launch of the new Australian Interlibrary Resource Sharing Code. The major change to the Code is in the level of service offered. The ‘priority’ level has been dropped, the ‘rush’ level changed to a 24-hour turnaround and the ‘core’ level to a four-day turnaround. Details about the Code are available from the ALIA website www.alia.org.au/interlibrary.lending/ilrs.code.html.

The participants then heard a series of reports and papers. Roxanne Missingham from the Parliamentary Library began with a presentation on the Rethinking Resource Sharing paper. Originating from North America, it was a call to the library community to rethink current resource sharing practices to make them more relevant and readily available to individual users. This tied in well with a presentation by the National Library’s Fran Wilson and Kent Fitch on enhancing the experience of the end user in accessing items found via Libraries Australia. Based on current technology and commercial models there is potential for developing a national ‘getting’ service whereby items are delivered directly to the end user.

Other reports from the National Library included an update by Rob Walls on how libraries are recording information about e-resources in the Australia National Bibliographic Database (ANBD), and a report by Margarita Moreno titled Evaluation of the 2001 Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Benchmarking Study. Walls has found that while the coverage of e-resources in the ANBD has increased substantially, there is still much room for improvement. Moreno’s presentation informed participants that the Benchmarking Study has been very useful, and directions for future studies were discussed.

Erica Ryan from the National Library then updated the Forum on progress in the National Licensing Proposal. She was followed by Sarah Waladan from the Australian Libraries’ Copyright Committee who talked about the latest copyright law reforms by the Federal Government. Representatives from the various library sectors then presented their reports and raised issues identified in their sectors.

In summary, in terms of the best practice manual for interlending activities, the ALIA Interlibrary Lending Expert Advisory Group agreed to look into using WIKI technology to create a virtual manual, with the new ILRS Code as the starting point. Participants at the Forum also decided to establish a reference group to focus on conceptualising new resource sharing models and, more specifically, exploring the possibility of a national ‘getting’ service for the end user. For information on the forum visit www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/rsforum.html

Wan Wong
Document Supply Service