Improve delivery times and achieve zero unfilled requests

30 January 2025

As Moraine Valley Community College’s only full-time interlibrary loan staff member, Susan Yach relies on WorldShare ILL and Express to meet the high expectations of its students and faculty. Moraine Valley participates in LVIS (Libraries Very Interested in Sharing), and in 2021 joined the OCLC Express program, which enables digital resource sharing among a select group of libraries with fast turnaround times.

“I became interested in Express as a way to improve customer service,” said Susan Yach, Interlibrary Loan and Serials Assistant, Moraine Valley Community College. “My goals were to improve delivery times and have zero unfilled article requests, and I have achieved that since becoming an Express participant.”

Moraine Valley’s students want articles quickly and aren’t willing to use ILL if they have to wait two or three days to receive them. Because of this and her additional job duties, Susan needed to save time spent on processing ILL requests. The Express program, available at no additional cost, made it easy for Susan to get approval from her supervisors. Next, she set up the library’s custom holdings groups, which was simple and didn’t require IT support.

“To accomplish my goals, I had to relinquish control of choosing my own lender string and trust that the built-in automations would work their magic,” said Susan. “This was huge for me. I've been working in ILL for 25 years and it wasn't easy for me to go outside my comfort zone.”

Susan recalls the first time she used automation to build the lender string. It was for one of the institution’s instructors whose requests were usually highly specialized and time-consuming. After Susan submitted the request, she went to get a cup of coffee.

“By the time I returned to my desk, the article had been filled,” said Susan. “I sent it to the instructor. He emailed me back with one word: ‘Wow.’ I was wowed too, and I continue to be wowed today.”

Promote Express across campus

To raise awareness, Susan developed a marketing plan to promote the Express service to students and faculty. She posted an announcement on the library’s web page, scheduled social media posts, added the Express badge to her e-mail signature, and even designed materials to distribute at pop-up library events. Moraine Valley’s marketing department helped design bookmarks that featured the Express badge, and Susan coached the college’s reference librarians to promote Express whenever students request research assistance.

“I even personally emailed faculty working on their dissertations,” said Susan. “This has led to even more partnerships. One of the faculty authors even thanked me and the ILL department in her book, for supplying her with the research she needed.”

Improve ILL turnaround times

From January to July 2024, Moraine Valley’s library averaged 6.97 hours to fulfill lending requests. Susan also has enabled email notifications in Service Configuration to ensure that she immediately sees when a request has been filled, allowing her to quickly forward it to the library user.

For borrowing, the average turnaround time was 18.92 hours during this same period, with nearly 100% of copy requests filled by Express libraries.

The 18.92-hour turnaround is just an average—some months are even faster. For example, one month, Susan’s average was 14 hours. She works Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and most requests are filled the same day. If she submits a request late in the day, it’s usually ready by the next morning. Limited library hours aren’t a barrier to joining Express; eligibility is based on average turnaround times, so she recommends libraries check with OCLC to see if they qualify.

“Although I'm the only person processing ILL requests, it's a team effort,” said Susan. “Our Electronic Resource Manager provides licensing agreements for our database articles. Our Systems Manager updates our system configurations, and our Technical Service Coordinator is updating our serial holdings in OCLC. That's a huge undertaking.”

Location

• Palos Hills, Illinois, USA

Library at a glance

• Founded in 1967
• Over 7,000 students visit the library in a week
  
• Serves more than 11,000 students
  
• Main campus, plus two campus extension locations