MOBAC ILL Committee Report 2008-2009
- What are your committee’s long-range goals? What are your short-term objectives for the 2008-2009 fiscal year?
- To explore other delivery options and re-assess current delivery system
- To identify challenges and best practices for each library and to see if those issues are relevant to other member libraries
- To review the MOBAC ILL web pages
- To redefine the committee so that our primary charge is clear
- To continue the annual survey of MOBAC ILL practices
- To continue to provide excellent customer service for the sharing of resources
- To monitor the efficiency and frequency of deliveries
- To continue to facilitate professional growth opportunities for all MOBAC ILL committee staff members
- Within the areas of responsibility of your committee, what are the issues that MOBAC should address to meet member needs and improve library service by member libraries? Are these issues best addressed by the Administrative Council? Or by one or more of the other committees?
- The MOBAC ILL committee requests clarification and regular updates about the regional consolidation from the Administrative Council. How will MOBAC services be affected by the consolidation?
- We would like to help update the MOBAC webpage.
- The MOBAC ILL Committee requests that the Administrative Council work with its members to ensure that all libraries are participating in OCLC interlibrary loan activities and to report to the MOBAC ILL Committee the status of any which are not participating.
- With input from the MOBAC Administrative Council, the MOBAC ILL Committee will re-define our charge so that it makes clear that we consist of and for ILL staff as we serve MOBAC/ Pacific Library Partnership (PLP) libraries and advise the Administrative Council.
- In the opinion of your committee, what opportunities in your areas of responsibility lie ahead for MOBAC members? What barriers or potential barriers are we facing? How can these barriers be overcome?
- Administrative Council liaison attendance to MOBAC ILL Committee meetings is important in order to provide committee members with input, clarification and information. The timely posting of all MOBAC committees’ meeting minutes in the Intranet would also facilitate inter-committee communication, and would lessen the sense of working in isolation.
- The California Libraries Catalog has allowed our patrons to enjoy greater access to materials throughout our region and the state. Several libraries now allow patrons initiate their own ILL requests, and ILL activity has subsequently increased for many MOBAC libraries. The trend in resource sharing is growth and there is concern about adequate staffing to meet the workload.
- The increased ILL workload has resulted in irregular attendance at ILL Committee meetings. Staff members often have to choose between fulfilling patron requests and attending the bi-monthly meetings. These meetings provide an opportunity for staff to discuss issues, share ideas, and problem-solve with peers – and often result in better customer service for our patrons. Administrative support, in both the theoretical and practical sense of the word, is needed in order that active ILL staff attend these meetings.
- What policy decisions will the Administrative Council need to make to help your committee achieve your objectives for FY 2008/09 ? Please be specific.
- What are the fiscal requirements relating toward objective and policy recommendations for FY 2008/09? Are you aware of outside funding sources, such as grants? If so, please describe them. What are your budget needs for FY 2008/09?
- What else does the Administrative Council need to know about your objectives for the upcoming fiscal year?
- We encourage UCSC to remain a MOBAC member library and we find their membership to the Resource Sharing community valuable and important.
- Increased patron access to library holdings has presented MOBAC libraries with a number of challenges, including staffing, training, and timely delivery of materials. Communication among Committee members and between the MOBAC committees is increasingly important as we strive to improve service to our patrons.
- We would like to become more informed on the benefits of belonging to the PLP. We are currently gathering our own borrowing and loaning statistics, but it is labor-intensive, and we would like to know how the PLP plans to support this activity.
The committee’s short-term objectives are:
The committee’s long-range goals are:
We feel it is necessary that the Administrative Council send to all MOBAC committees the documents pertinent to regional consolidation such as the Intent Letter, strategic business plan, policy changes, talking points, mission charge, and all other pertinent documents.
The ILL Committee is very interested in presenting a Copyright Clearance Center workshop based on fundamental copyright law and ILL specific copyright concerns. We are contacting the CCC about price quotes, workshop content, and dates (with consideration for Tuesday, December 9, 2008 as the CCC is already coming to the Naval Postgraduate School the week of December 8.) The Council has already budgeted $2500 for ILL -related training—we anticipate that the workshop may cost more. We would like the Administrative Council to approve additional costs up to a total allocation of $3,500. Please keep in mind that the ILL Committee did not spend its workshop allocation in the last fiscal year.
We are also interested in attending the annual Northwest Pacific Interlibrary Loan and Resource Sharing Conference http://www.nwill.org/ held in Portland, Oregon in Fall 2009 and are considering the possibility of requesting financial assistance in next year’s budget to have MOBAC member library ILL staff attend.
The ILL Committee looks forward to working with the Administrative Council on these and other issues.