Interlibrary Loan Subcommittee/Committee Notes/Minutes

March 29, 2022 at 10 a.m.

Zoom

Present: Kathy Wolkoff, MAD; Nancy Myers, MRO; Jenny Carr, MID; Diane Casselberry, STP; Cheryl Ver Hulst, MCM; Joan Wheeler, BAR; Marylu Silka, ACL; Lindsey Ganz, COL

Absent: Autumn Baumann, POR; Natalie Kruse, MFD

Excused: Cindy Stankey, SUN;

Recorder: Jean Anderson

SCLS staff present: Jean Anderson, Heidi Oliversen

1. Call to order time 10:00 a.m.

a. Introduction of guests/visitors

2. Approval of previous meeting minutes: November 2, 2021

a. Changes or corrections: None

b. Approved by motion

i. Nancy Myers moved to approve, Kathy Wolkoff seconded, motion approved

3. Action items

a. Update Subcommittee Composition

i. There are only four non-LINKcat libraries (in three counties) in SCLS. Asking three of the four of them to participate on the ILL Subcommittee is unrealistic. I propose asking one of them to participate representing all of the non-LINKcat libraries. Currently two of the four libraries are conducting director searches so Jean will ask when they are fully staffed.

ii. The ILL Subcommittee members are all ILL practitioners and many have served on the subcommittee since it began. Strike the section about serving two-year terms.

iii. Add that Circulation Services Consultant will be the representative of the ILS staff and Delivery staff will be consulted as needed.

iv. Strike the part about electing a chair and notetaking.

v. Jean will make the necessary changes and confirm with the System Director on the next steps.

4. Discussion items

· Madison: Staffing update – recently got a new clerk who used to be a page in OLL. Just started last week so they are still training. Good timing as another staff member is going on family leave.

o January – started borrowing for Middleton and is going smoothly. Haven’t seen any issues there. Going great – have six people responsible for making requests (one each day).

o Activity is bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels. Definitely up from 2021 and almost back to pre-pandemic levels. True for both borrowing and lending. A lot of Wisconsin libraries are having a lot of staffing issues with lots of turnover. This seems to affect ILL/OLL for training, etc. A few libraries nationwide that are still not back to full service but most are coming back. Bigger issue is postal service as some items are taking longer than normal to arrive.

· Wonderbooks and Playaway discussion: There is a long standing practice of not lending/borrowing Playaways. This practice was inherited from predecessors and not questioned. MAD OLL started getting a few requests for Wonderbooks (audio enabled picture books) and began talking about that as a staff. They asked about treating them as Playawys and not lending them.

o Question: Is there a good reason to not lend playaways? Should we treat both of these formats the same for consistency? Or is there a good reason to treat them the same/differently? Fewer restrictions on what we will/won’t lend is easier. Wouldn’t lend anything that had a waiting list. If it happened to be available on the shelf, they would put a hold on it and lend. Question/comment was made that this type of material may be more browsing available. Checked in with Winnefox as they also don’t lend Playaways. They are not going to lend Wonderbooks because it’s a smaller collection and they want them to be available.

o Heidi – initial concern about charger/battery pack back? Jeff and Margie may ask historical information about this as well.

o Jenny – charged with a battery – maybe there was an issue about mailing a battery? In favor of lending both – playaways and wonderbooks

o Kathy – did take a wonderbook to the post office and they didn’t see any problem with mailing them.

o Nancy – would check with Lora at MRO about it. They have old playaways and they haven’t bought Wonderbooks yet.

o Kathy – the requests for Playaways aren’t a huge number

o Marylu – do we put in a lot requests for Wonderbooks or Playaways from other systems?

§ Kathy – we don’t borrow playaways because we don’t lend them.

o Kathy – if we did change our policy to lend playaways we would also change our policy on libraries requesting them

o Diane – thinks borrowing/lending Playaways is a good idea. Wonderbooks – they have about 50 but only 17 are on the shelf. So a pretty popular collection right now. Okay with the Wonderbooks as well as the requests likely wouldn’t be overwhelming.

o Lindsey – part of ABC rotating collection and they don’t have a large collection of playaways.

o Jenny – stopped purchasing playaways and phasing out collection

o Cheryl – they don’t have any wonderbooks but have plenty of playaways and would be fine to lend those.

o Joan – will check with Zach and Nathan

· What’s next? Hear back from libraries on subcommittee by April 15, then send email to ILL email list. Start a trial period of lending/borrowing Playaways in May. Ask libraries about Wonderbooks? We can always pull it back. Could test with in state libraries before going out of state to see if any issues arise. Jean will come up with a Google Form.

· Lost/Damaged payments to SCLS libraries – Kathy has been trying to make this process of getting libraries their $ more streamlined. With staffing changes, Kathy had to temporarily take over that billing process and it’s been an education and shown her ways that the process can be updated. New process will be that Madison will issue a check to the loaning SCLS library for lost/damaged items. Then, MAD OLL staff will contact the borrowing library for the payment and receive the payment. This will make the process much cleaner and avoid confusion for both the loaning and borrowing libraries.

· OCLC FirstSearch Update – fingers crossed that all the issues with FirstSearch and WorldShare are now fixed. If you have issues, please let Jean and Kathy know.

5. Plan for next meeting: October 25, 2022 at 10 a.m. via Zoom

6. Adjournment: 11 a.m.

For more information about the ILL Subcommittee Committee, contact Jean Anderson.

SCLS staff are available to attend cluster meetings to share information and answer questions pertaining to this committee meeting and other departmental projects.

ILL/Minutes/03-2022