Bring stability and resiliency to ILL with Express

Located in Des Moines, Iowa, Drake University is a mid-sized private institution with three libraries across its campus. The largest, Cowles Library, serves the majority of Drake’s undergraduate students, houses the university’s special collections and archives, and functions as a Federal Depository library.

In 2021, Cowles Library faced staffing and budget cuts, challenging the remaining library staff to find new ways to maintain its high standard of service. “We no longer had a full-time position dedicated to processing ILL requests. But by participating in OCLC’s Express digital delivery program, we’ve found a way to sustain our high level of customer service,” said Joanna Stankiewicz, Head of Access Services.

Collaborate to maintain exceptional service

Prior to these cuts, staff, students, and faculty were accustomed to fast turnaround times, as a result of having a single dedicated team member responsible for processing ILL requests. But moving forward without that dedicated position took a great deal of change management.

“First, we evaluated our entire ILL workflow,” explained Joanna. “We broke down our previous processes and rebuilt them from the ground up. We transitioned to Tipasa and then set up automations, trusting the system to do the work for us. This has saved us so much time.”

By participating in OCLC’s Express program and distributing ILL responsibilities among several team members, the library restructured its ILL processing workflows.

“We spread the ILL responsibilities across two librarians’ roles,” said Joanna. “We also trained three students and cross-trained all four of the librarians within Access Services. By reorganizing, our team has been able to better manage our workloads while also providing a high level of service.”

With a collaborative approach, the Access Services team developed a new strategy for ILL and updated the position descriptions to reflect the new responsibilities, enabling a sustainable service model.

Improve turnaround times through automations and streamlined workflows

For Joanna, it was important for her to emphasize to the Dean that joining the Express program not only was free but also would also significantly benefit library staff, students, and faculty.

“Becoming an Express member and implementing automation features allowed us to create sustainable workflows that consistently meet our users’ expectations,” said Joanna. “It brought stability and helped us demonstrate that we can remain resilient, even through difficult situations.”

Since joining Express, the library has achieved an average lending turnaround time of 18 hours for copy requests, a notable improvement from the previous average of 30 hours.

“With Express, it is truly a reciprocal relationship,” said Joanna. “We’re filling requests faster, and we’re also receiving items at an accelerated rate. Since becoming an Express library, we now fill our students and faculty’s copy requests in an average of 14.75 hours—and 32 hours faster than before. That’s pretty impressive.”

In their team approach to ILL, whoever can assist with ILL requests handles them, which has allowed the Cowles Library to keep its operations efficient despite staffing challenges. "We’ve tailored our experience with Express and ILL to our team’s unique setup, and the results have been extremely positive. We hope our approach helps others facing similar situations," Joanna noted.

Location

• Des Moines, Iowa, USA

Library at a glance

• Largest private academic library in Iowa
• 4,500+ students
• Extensive physical and digital collections, including journals, ebooks, and research databases