Resource Sharing Workgroup Minutes

Present: Carolyn Tassie, Miko Pattie, Linda Sherrow, Barb Hale, Allen Ashman, Ruth Kinnersley, Jackie Kinder, Becky Croft, Laura Davison

Courier Service-

We discussed what can be sent by courier. There have been several instances of the courier being used for delivery of non-interlibrary loan materials. There was discussion about whether or not this is appropriate use of the service, whether it meets the contract requirements, etc.

The contract does not prohibit this type of use but the consenus was that the original intent of the courier service was to provide a way to expedite delivery of official interlibrary loan materials and KYVU materials throughout the state. Expanding the service to include other materials such as large print materials, equipment, and large collections such as exchange materials, gift items, and discarded government publications raises several issues-

the efficiency of the service

the workload of ILL staffs

the accuracy of the statistics

future contract price

Jackie will check with people at INCOLSA and MOBIUS to see if they have encountered this type of use and how they handle it.

For now, we decided that the courier service should operate under the original intent and be restricted to official interlibrary loan materials and KYVU materials. Library materials checked out at one library and inadvertently returned by the user to another library may be sent back but should be clearly identified so that ILL staff know what the materials are. We agreed that this type of use should not be promoted to users. Linda Sherrow will clarify this in the Courier Service Procedures Manual and then Jackie will send a message to the Doc Delivery Listserv.

We also decided to add a statement to the manual about the courier service being a state-funded service so that people do not mistakenly refer to it as a free service.

Statistics-

We discussed the statistics that have been collected for August and September and what to do in cases of libraries that do not report their statistics. We decided that libraries that do not report their statistics for 3 consecutive months may be dropped from the service. Before that happens, Jackie will call the library directors and see how we can help them to use the service and report statistics.