2. Borrowing Questions
• How many articles were successfully sent
through Direct Request?
• Is the turn-around time for these articles
better than regular articles?
• If so, at what point in the process is the time
being saved?
• How much time total did Direct Request
articles save us?
• How many requests are not being
successfully sent through Direct Request?
• Why are they being blocked by Direct
Request?
ASSESSMENT
3. How many articles were successfully sent
through Direct Request?
For a three-month period in 2012…
30% of filled article requests were Direct
Request (287 out of 959)
How to get this data:
Shows requests that were successfully sent via
Direct Request (will not include ones that failed,
but will include those that come back unfilled)
ASSESSMENT
4. Is the turn-around time for these articles
better than regular articles?
Average turn-around of 1.98 days compared
to 6.26 days (Nov. 2012)
Much better!!
How to get this data:
Pick a typical month. Use the previous Custom Search
to get transaction numbers for Directly Requested
articles for that month. Run ILLiad’s Turn Around
Time Report and export the transaction detail into
Excel. Copy the data for just the Direct Request
transactions and figure the average turn around time.
Compare this to the turnaround time provided by the
report. (Must convert the minutes/days/hours be
consistent)
ASSESSMENT
5. At what point in the process is the time
being saved?
Submitted – Sent = 14.47 hours
(compared to 1.9 days)
Sent – Delivered = 1.43 days (compared
to 4.35 days)
KB is more accurate for selecting lenders
and KB lenders fill requests faster.
How to get this data:
Use the Turn Around Time report created in the
last slide.
ASSESSMENT
6. How much time total did Direct Request
articles save us?
During a three-month period…
We had 287 articles sent directly.
It easily takes one minute to process
article requests manually.
So we saved at least 287 minutes (about 5
hours) in three months.
How to get this data:
Use the Custom Search from three slides back to
get the total number of requests and then
multiply by the time it takes to process requests
manually.
ASSESSMENT
7. How many requests are not being
successfully sent through Direct Request?
During a three-month period…
672/959 of filled article requests were not
direct requests (70%)
How to get this data:
Use Custom Search from a few slides ago
ASSESSMENT
8. Why are they being blocked by Direct
Request?
Held by our Library
This is a good type of block
No ISSN or OCLC# on request
Not enough lenders
There aren’t enough KB lenders available or
sometimes the record selected by OCLC# does not
have enough but another one would have
ISSN search with too many hits
Cannot process more than 25 records
How Direct Request searches:
If request contains ISSN and OCLC, DR will search
by ISSN.
If ISSN results in less than 25 hits, DR will select
the bib record first by DLC (Library of Congress)
then by number of holding codes on the record.
ASSESSMENT
9. Borrowing CONCLUSIONS
• Requests take less staff time
• Requests are filled much faster
• The potential time-savings is limited by the
number of requests that can successfully go
through Direct Request
ASSESSMENT
10. Borrowing /Doc Del Questions
• How many articles were successfully
identified as owned by us?
• How often were the links incorrect?
• Why were the links incorrect?
• How many open access requests did we
fill?
• How much time did the links save us?
ASSESSMENT
11. How many articles were successfully
identified as owned by us?
During a 3-month period…
We were automatically notified that 377
requests were owned by our Library.
133 of these had links to the full-text.
How to get this data:
Look at Doc Del article requests with “Direct
Request” in the Lender String field.
ASSESSMENT
12. How often were the links incorrect?
Out of 487, 110 were incorrect (23%)
How to get this data:
Look for requests in Borrowing that have a
note “Held by your library” Since these
requests were not moved to Doc Del, you can
assume that we did not actually own.
ASSESSMENT
13. Why were the links incorrect?
How to get this data:
Run the previous search and go through each request to
see why the link didn’t work.
Open
Access
Links
16%
Staff Error
9%
Print
Holdings
Incorrect
7%
Publisher
Holdings
Incorrect
59%
Publisher
Link Not
Working
9%
ASSESSMENT
14. How many Open Access requests did we
fill?
More difficult to measure because
“Collections” tab is not available in Doc
Del.
To track this, have staff include something in
the Note field or type “Online” in Lending
String.
ASSESSMENT
15. How much time did the links save us?
Request with links take under 1 minute to
process (133)
Without the links it takes at least an extra
minute per request
At least 133 minutes saved during a 3-
month period
Time also saved because we didn’t have to
check the rest of the article requests to see if
we owned them
ASSESSMENT
16. Borrowing /Doc Del Conclusions
• Saves time by identifying items we own
• Links save time when retrieving the pdf for
Doc Del
• Exposes Open Access resources that we
would otherwise have to search for… exact
number hard to determine
ASSESSMENT
17. ASSESSMENT
Lending Questions
• How many Knowledge Base requests were
received?
• How much did this increase our lending?
• How often did the links work?
• Why were the links not working?
• How much time was wasted on non-working
links?
• How much time did these links save us?
18. ASSESSMENT
How many Knowledge Base requests were
received?
574 in a 3-month period
402 filled
This accounts for 25% of our lending during this
period
How to get data:
19. ASSESSMENT
Lending Questions
How much did this increase our lending?
Our article lending increased by 13%
from 2010-2011 to 2011-2012
Made us a net lender again even though our
book loans decreased
This year, we are up 24% from this point last
year (up by almost 700 requests).
These are easy requests to fill because of the
links!
21. ASSESSMENT
Why were the links not working?
How to get
this data:
Incorrect
Holdings
89%
Incorrect
Citation
11%
22. ASSESSMENT
How much time was wasted on non-
working links?
172 incorrect links in three months
Depends how much time you want your staff to
spend searching for each request
For Open Access links, it takes less than a
minute to Google the article title to see if it’s
available elsewhere.
For things we own, it takes just 5 seconds to
click on the link and see it doesn’t work. Then
just follow your normal procedures.
For things we never really owned, it should only
take 1 minute to discover we don’t own it and
cancel the request.
23. ASSESSMENT
How much time did these links save us?
402 requests in three months
A scanned requests takes at least 8 minutes of
staff time
A normal electronic request takes at least two
minutes of staff time
A KB request takes less than a minute of staff
time
Saved somewhere between 6 and 46
hours
24. Lending Conclusions
• Dramatically increased our opportunities to
lend
• Much faster than our old method of
primarily scanning articles
• KB requests are easy to fill
• A substantial number of KB links don’t work,
but staff is in control of how much time they
spend on these
ASSESSMENT
