Share resources with fewer clicks

The University of Saint Francis had maintained a client-based interlibrary loan system for many years. Although it supported student needs well, the library staff members weren't able to get the technical support they needed. "We were self-hosted, and we'd had a lot of turnaround with our tech support," explained Resource Sharing Specialist Barbara Chen. "So we were getting to the point where there were very few people who knew the system."

Barbara jumped at the chance to become an early adopter of Tipasa^® in part because it's cloud-based and doesn't rely on campus IT services. Once she implemented and started using Tipasa, she said, "The workflow is simpler than in the past. There aren't as many steps that you have to go through." She continued, "Because there are fewer clicks, you feel like you're getting places quicker." The student assistants who help Barbara have told her they agree. "It just makes it so much easier for them. And less training time too"

"From my students' perspective, they like it a lot simply because there aren’t as many clicks for them to go through. It's easier for them to process the requests."

One of Barbara's favorite aspects of Tipasa is the unmediated loans, especially for libraries in her consortium. "I have it set up so that if it's something owned in our own collection, it will automatically go to document delivery," she said. "So I don't have to move it there, it automatically goes there." She also loves the 50 customizable notes that OCLC added in response to member feedback. These allow Barbara to explain why a request was canceled. "That makes me a happy camper, because just having one cancellation note was not fun."

Even without significant support from University Technical Services (UTS), Barbara said, "The implementation went really well." Now, her Tipasa enhancements happen frequently through the cloud. "The biggest challenge now is keeping up with all the updates and making sure I'm staying up on top of everything," she said. For libraries thinking about joining the cloud service with her, she said, "If you're self-hosted, definitely go to the new Tipasa just because you have experts at OCLC and they know the program better than your UTS folks would know."

Library at a glance

• Supports a private, Catholic university of about 2,300 students on campus and online
• Includes more than 68,000 print volumes, including subscriptions to more than 450 periodicals, as well as access to 200,000 e-books
• Special collections include field studies from research in the Bahamas as well as historical resources about the university and the family who owned the land on which campus now resides