NSW PUBLIC LIBRARIES DOCUMENT DELIVERY WORKING PARTY MEETING MINUTES
Date: Monday 1st February 2021
Venue: Macquarie Room, State Library of NSW
Time: 2.00pm-5.00pm
Chairperson: Anne Laidlaw, City of Sydney
Secretary: Kristin Ovidi, Sutherland
1. Welcome and introductions
2. Apologies
- Ania Milczarczyk, Campbelltown
- Aurora L’Aimable, Bayside
- Brenda Finney, Singleton
- Deborah Malcolm, Stanton
- Dianne Jenkins, Newcastle
- Murray Boothman, Strathfield
- Sharni Macdonald, Parramatta
- Sharon Downie, Liverpool
- Zena Jaber, Snowy Monaro
3. AGM Nomination of Chairperson and Secretary
Anne Laidlaw (City of Sydney) will continue as Chairperson and Kristin Ovidi (Sutherland) to continue as Secretary for the next 12 months.
4. Confirmation of minutes dated 7th December 2020
Teresita Quinones (Waverley) and Ken Cullen (Inner West).
5. Actions arising from previous meeting
- SLNSW ILL e-list issue - resolved. The issue with emailing to the NSW ILL e-list has been resolved. In the case of Anne (City of Sydney) and Kristin (Sutherland) having problems emailing link to the attendance form and the meeting minutes, it was discovered that their email addresses had dropped off the e-list. If you are having problems sending emails to ill@libraries.nsw.gov.au then you can re-subscribe at: https://lists.libraries.nsw.gov.au/postorius/lists/ill.libraries.nsw.gov.au/
- ILL email requests appearing in Google – resolved. Emailed requests which were being sent via [Hard2find] are no longer appearing in Google searches. The e-list archives have been made private so when you undertake the same search, you will see the e-list site but not have access any of the content.
- LADD issues – resolved. Fujing (Ku-ring-gai) contacted LADD regarding the incorrect charge of $16.50 (instead of $28.50) appearing from the University of Sydney in LADD’s bimonthly report. Fujing also contacted the University but everything looked fine from their end. The next bimonthly report will indicate whether the issue has been corrected but it appears that it has been resolved.
6. State Library of NSW report
- Quarantining of returned items. In response to Cameron Morley’s email regarding isolating returned items, all libraries have now moved to not quarantining as per information sent from the State Library. This has come into effect over the past week or so as various councils have had to give approval to proceed with this new procedure.
- Incorrect email address listed in the ILRS. Fujing (Ku-ring-gai) emailed SLNSW regarding the borrowing of an item to which she received no response; it turns out that the email listed in the ILRS was incorrect. Please use: dds@sl.nsw.gov.au
- The ILL role at the SLNSW. This role is performed by several people, some are working onsite and others from home. Please bear this in mind with any delays in response to emails/requests as there isn’t a single person dedicated to ILLs all day, every day. Due to staff shortages and rosters, staff respond to ILL requests in the morning but in the afternoon the phones are checked only twice.
7. Multicultural Services report - multicultural_services_report_for_ill_meet-feb_2021.pdf
- Visit from Oriana. In 2021, the State Library’s Multicultural Service will be launching a promotional campaign targeting NSW multicultural organisations. The aim is to raise awareness of the free bulk loans service in a community that is often too shy to ask for what they need in a library setting. Contacts from different community organisations will be approached with a letter explaining the Multicultural Service. Bookmarks have also be printed and will be made available at central branches in libraries and out in the community. The following phase will deal with email promotion for those organisations that don’t have a physical address.
- New items purchased for collections. New books in Chinese, Macedonian, Polish and Vietnamese have been purchased.
- Resumption of bulk loans service for 2021.A reminder that the bulk loans service has resumed for 2021. The new Multicultural Bulk Loans request form was built over the December 2020 holidays and went live on 1st January 2021.
- New Multicultural Bulk Loans form.There has been positive feedback about the new form which makes it easier to tailor the request to the patron. If you would like the notes from the Q&A Zoom session, please contact Jo at: joanna.goh@sl.nsw.gov.au. Copies of the notes were sent to the Zoom attendees as well as to the various e-lists.
8. ILL van – 2021 schedule - ill_schedule_2020-21_with_changes.xlsx
Some changes to the Van schedule have been made; these changes will be added to the DD wiki on 2nd February 2021. Samantha Mantakoun will send out an updated list. Changes include:
- Canterbury Bankstown has gone from 4 runs to 3 weekly
- Burwood is changing to Wednesday runs instead of Tuesday
- Penrith’s ILL contact is now Irene Wong (email: LSillpc@penrith.city, ph: 02 4732 7887). Welcome to Irene!
- Hornsby and Castle Hill are undergoing some refurbishments this year and will have temporary location changes.
- Anne Laidlaw (City of Sydney) has moved from Town Hall to Custom’s House yet the delivery is still being made to Town Hall due to parking issues, items may take an additional day to be transferred to Anne at Customs House.
9. The Wiki
The old Google wiki currently remains the primary source for the DD Working Group. The plan for the future is to keep this old wiki as a source of information and the minutes will be posted to the new Doku wiki on the SLNSW’s website. Ellen Forsyth has kindly added the minutes from our August and December 2020 meetings to the new Doku wiki. To make things easier, there is a link on the Doku wiki that takes you to the original Google wiki.
Doku wiki: https://wiki.libraries.nsw.gov.au/doku.php?id=document_delivery_working_group
Google wiki: https://sites.google.com/site/interlibraryloansnsw/home
10. Libraries Australia/LADD issues
- Check charges when shipping. Mayer (Canterbury Bankstown) noticed that a Victorian library, which had previously been reciprocal, had come through with a charge on the last LADD bi-monthly invoice. Mayer contacted the Library but didn’t receive a response, but the Library did drop the charge. This Library is also listed as a recipient borrower on their LADD listing. Please keep an eye on cost when sending requests and report any further issues to Libraries Australia. Teresita (Waverley) also had a couple of $18.50 charges from a reciprocal library but she managed to fix the issue on the LADD form using the recalculate costs option, making it $0.00.
- Some locations showing available but keep expiring. Some libraries indicate they are available but keep expiring eg. Gold Coast.
11. Suggested topics for discussion
Spydus and ILL module.
- Spydus is not updating to Trove, still operating on Sirsi. Need to access Van run days to assist in placing requests. The Van schedule has been added to the ILL Google wiki with up-to-date information.
- Ania (Campbelltown) would like to contact other libraries which are currently using Spydus, she would like to know how other people are using this system. A list of other Spydus users has been emailed to Ania.
- Mayer (Canterbury Bankstown) would like to know if any libraries use the Spydus ILL module as she is interested in their feedback. Her library hasn’t purchased it but it seems that it’s a good system, a good reporting module. You can track requests eg what’s pending, etc. and patrons can see the status of their request.
- Shelley (Cumberland) uses Symphony to manage ILLs. It’s a paperless system. Borrowers can track their own ILL requests and there’s an option to add notes if the borrower needs to contact the library. Website indicates a delay of 4-6 weeks (due to Covid) but it’s a minimum of 2-3 weeks in general. A borrowing history can be tracked over 12 months plus.
- Ponnary (Inner West) said that the Spydus request module works well. It’s a good reporting module, has live tracking. Borrowers can check if their item has been ordered and when/where from.
Inner West updates.
Inner West libraries are no longer on LADD and are using the Spydus request module. All ILL email correspondence should be sent to the Inner West Library email: library@innerwest.nsw.gov.au.
Clarification of SLNSW items that can be borrowed (please see email sent 15/3/21 by Joanna Goh)
Clarification was requested for items previously able to be borrowed now stating ‘State Reference Library Collection onsite use only’ on the SLNSW’s catalogue. Jo (SLNSW) has sent us a Guide to Requesting Inter-library Loans from SLNSW. Jo cleared up the confusion with the ‘onsite use only’ wording, that this is intended to alert the public that they are unable to borrow directly from the SLNSW, it is not meant as a message for the inter-lending community regarding what we can/can’t borrow from the collection.
How do ILL services work in other libraries? Example, number of staff, is it your sole job or do you work in other areas, etc.
- Murray (Strathfield): NSL multicultural section. Also purchasing, processing, cataloguing all adult AV items.
- Kristin (Sutherland): ILLs is a team of 3 but also does desk shifts, local studies and bulk loans.
- Anne (City of Sydney): ILLs, bulk loans, desk cover, Corporate Library back-up.
- Teresita (Waverley): ILLs but another 3 people are trained back-up staff. Also does desk shifts.
- Ponnary (Inner West): 3 people share ILLs, shared role with Collections team, cataloguing serials, catalogue maintenance, bulk loans and ILLs. Also does desk shifts. There is also a Multicultural Librarian (although this is not Ponnary’s role).
- Grace (Mosman): ILLs, bulk loans, accessing serials, community directory and desk shifts. 1 person as backup for ILLs.
- Shelley (Cumberland): ILLs full-time (8 libraries). Also DVD purchasing and desk shifts. No ILL backup. Doesn’t deal with bulk loans but has staff who can take ILL requests and enter into LADD and return items. No ILL backup when on leave.
- Fujing (Ku-ring-gai): ILLs full time, bulk loans (a Library Assistant is available to sometimes help) and serials as well. Spends ½ of her time on desk shifts and ½ on ILLs.
- Jo (SLNSW): Mutlicultural Services - bulk loans, large print, talking books, long-term loans.
Option for online meeting once a year.
As not everyone can attend the quarterly DD Working Party meetings at the SLNSW, the group has suggested to have an online meeting in August 2021. If there are any concerns about this please raise them with Anne (City of Sydney) before the May meeting so that there is time to adjust plans. The platform will be confirmed closer to the date.
12. General business
- NLA link regarding partial services in academic libraries. The NLA has provided a link to the current list with more detailed information on partial services in academic libraries as a result of Covid: http://www.nla.gov.au/librariesaustralia/reduced-interlibrary-loan-and-document-supply-services. Thank you Teresita! Please note that not all universities have resumed full services, including the loan of physical items. An example is the University of NSW (no staff are on site) which plans to be back on board in February for alumni, but for the inter-lending community by, hopefully, March.
- ILL loan periods across NSW library services. Ponnary (Inner West) asked whether there was the possibility of standardising ILL loan periods across councils to make them uniform eg. some loans are currently 4 weeks while others are 6. The group discussed and noted that these limits are largely set by councils, not ILL staff, and may not be able to be changed. Suggestions were made to continue looking at the ILRS Directory for information on the various libraries’ lending periods and renewals and perhaps creating a local document that has a list of libraries and their various limits.
Action: Where possible could all libraries check their ILRS listing and update where necessary regarding loan periods and renewals permitted.
13. Next Meeting
- Monday 3rd May 2021, 2pm-5pm. Venue – SLNSW
- Monday 2nd August 2021, 2pm-5pm. Venue – online - Platform TBA
- Monday 6th December 2021, 2pm-5pm. Venue - TBA
14. Attendees
- Anne Laidlaw, City of Sydney
- Fujing Zhao, Ku-ring-gai
- Grace Yoo, Mosman
- Joanna Goh, SLNSW
- Ken Cullen, Inner West
- Kristin Ovidi, Sutherland
- Mayer Wu, Canterbury Bankstown
- Ponnary Toch, Inner West
- Shelley Petchell, Cumberland
- Teresita Quinones, Waverley