Turnaround Time Between ILLiad’s Odyssey and Ariel Delivery Methods: A Comparison

Interlibrary loan departments are frequently looking for ways to reduce turnaround time. The advent of electronic delivery in the past decade has greatly reduced turnaround time for articles, but recent developments in this arena have the potential to decrease that time even further. The ILLiad ILL management system has an electronic delivery component, Odyssey, with a Trusted Sender setting that allows articles to be sent to patrons without borrowing staff intervention, provided the lending library is designated as a Trusted Sender, or this feature is enabled for all lenders. Using the tracking data created by the ILLiad management system, the turnaround time for two delivery methods, Ariel and Odyssey, was captured for two different academic institutions. With the Trusted Sender setting turned on, Odyssey delivery was faster than Ariel for the institutions studied

Managing Employees in Interlibrary Loan, Circulation and Reserves: Supervision in a Production Environment

In a production environment, strategies for dealing with personnel problems are critical. Two of the most challenging staff problems that an interlibrary loan manager can confront are: (1) How to keep up with work when employees are absent and (2) Employee productivity problems. Interlibrary loan departments face the unique paradox of a workplace that is constantly changing and becoming more efficient due to the influence of technology on daily processes, yet still relies heavily on the daily labor and productivity of the staff. Additionally, interlibrary loan departments face almost constant time pressures, both from internal and external customers. The challenge is magnified when personnel issues arise, and the time needed to problem solve seems nonexistent. In particular, absenteeism and worker productivity can have disastrous results on interlibrary loan service quality, as well as a negative effect on departmental morale

“New shit has come to light”: Information seeking behavior in The Big Lebowski

This is the pre-peer reviewed version of a forthcoming article in The Journal of Popular Culture.The authors of this paper use characters from the 1998 film The Big Lebowski to illustrate the intricate, self-defined nature of information seeking behavior and the ways in which personal characteristics contribute to the success or failure of an information search

Impact of Carnivory on Human Development and Evolution Revealed by a New Unifying Model of Weaning in Mammals

Our large brain, long life span and high fertility are key elements of human evolutionary success and are often thought to have evolved in interplay with tool use, carnivory and hunting. However, the specific impact of carnivory on human evolution, life history and development remains controversial. Here we show in quantitative terms that dietary profile is a key factor influencing time to weaning across a wide taxonomic range of mammals, including humans. In a model encompassing a total of 67 species and genera from 12 mammalian orders, adult brain mass and two dichotomous variables reflecting species differences regarding limb biomechanics and dietary profile, accounted for 75.5%, 10.3% and 3.4% of variance in time to weaning, respectively, together capturing 89.2% of total variance. Crucially, carnivory predicted the time point of early weaning in humans with remarkable precision, yielding a prediction error of less than 5% with a sample of forty-six human natural fertility societies as reference. Hence, carnivory appears to provide both a necessary and sufficient explanation as to why humans wean so much earlier than the great apes. While early weaning is regarded as essentially differentiating the genus Homo from the great apes, its timing seems to be determined by the same limited set of factors in humans as in mammals in general, despite some 90 million years of evolution. Our analysis emphasizes the high degree of similarity of relative time scales in mammalian development and life history across 67 genera from 12 mammalian orders and shows that the impact of carnivory on time to weaning in humans is quantifiable, and critical. Since early weaning yields shorter interbirth intervals and higher rates of reproduction, with profound effects on population dynamics, our findings highlight the emergence of carnivory as a process fundamentally determining human evolution

Managing Employees in Interlibrary Loan, Circulation, and Reserves: Supervision in a Production Environment

Interlibrary loan departments are faced with the unique paradox of a workplace that is constantly changing and becoming more efficient due to the influence of technology on daily processes, yet still relies heavily on the daily labor and productivity of the staff. Additionally, interlibrary loan departments are faced with almost constant time pressures, both from internal and external customers. This challenge becomes magnified when personnel issues arise, and the time needed to problem solve seems non-existent. In particular, absenteeism and worker productivity can have disastrous results on interlibrary loan service quality, as well as a negative effect on departmental morale. This article will discuss strategies for dealing with these personnel problems in a production environment.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

The $64,000 Question Answered: Why Do Patrons Place ILL Requests for Items that the Library Already Owns?

Powerpoint Presentation originally presented on March 15, 2007 at the 2007 OCLC ILLiad International Meeting, Virgina Beach, Virginia. Audio version can be accessed at http://in-ulib-cheever.ads.iu.edu/IDEA/kjanke/ILL1/64000Question/index.htmInterlibrary loan is traditionally meant for items that cannot be obtained at the local library or through consortial catalog systems. However, in many libraries, the numbers of requests that are cancelled because they are available locally seems worse now than ever before. In 2005, IUPUI's University Library ILL department cancelled 24% (n=2,784) of all incoming requests because the item was available locally or through direct request in the system-wide online catalog. Requests for locally-owned items are a frustration for interlibrary loan staff: they would rather spend time locating items that we do not own. These requests can also lead to patron frustration because of the delay in obtaining the requested item and from the realization that they could have had it sooner all along. This presentation discusses the results of a user survey conducted to discover the reasons library users request items through interlibrary loan that they could obtain on their own, and highlights suggested strategies for reducing this epidemic. Audio version can be accessed at http://in-ulib-cheever.ads.iu.edu/IDEA/kjanke/ILL1/64000Question/index.ht

Taming the Torrent: Top Ten Ways to Simplify Your ILLiad Workflow

Ever wish you could simplify your ILLiad workflow quickly and easily? The speakers will describe ten ways you can do just that—for free! Topics include Trusted Sender, custom routing, template modification, converting pdfs to tiffs, Direct Request, custom queues, bypassing copyright clearance, custom emails, deflections, and using lending web pages

Taming the Torrent: Top Ten Ways to Simplify Your Resource Sharing Workflow

This presentation will present ten ways that interlibrary loan departments can simplify their workflows with no cost but a little bit of time. Topics covered will include implementing Odyssey standalone, benefits of custom holdings, how and why to use Direct Request, hows and whys of joining LVIS, use of OCLC IFM, how to convert PDFs to TIFFs and send using Ariel or Odyssey, Creating deflection policies in OCLC WCR, effective use of OCLC statistics, having a department website, and updating your Policies Directory entry. These methods can be implemented by libraries of all shapes and sizes, regardless of what (if any) management software they are using, and will help your library be a better lender and borrower. You may also be able to cut costs or become more efficient. The presenters will provide brief overviews of each topic and point to additional resources to help with implementation when attendees return to their libraries