The Interlibrary Loan (ILL) office in Butler Library switched to a new ILL management system on August 31, 2007. The new system replaces RLG?Äôs ILL Manager software, which was retired as part of the OCLC/RLG merger.

The new ILL system, developed by Atlas Systems, Inc. in collaboration with the ILL department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1996, is used by more than 700 libraries in the United States and abroad. The system offers an improved interface for our users, allowing them to place four different request types: article, loan (book, microform, score, media, etc.), book chapter, and dissertation/thesis. Users also have the ability to edit or cancel a request submitted in error, if that request has not yet been processed by the ILL staff. Users can see online, immediate, status tracking of all their outstanding and completed requests, and view up to the last 20 e-mail notifications sent to their Columbia e-mail address.

Additionally, the new system offers improved processing and delivery of electronically received articles, reducing the amount of time between a request?Äôs submission and receipt. During the first week in operation, an article request submitted by a user at 9:20 am was received and delivered to that user?Äôs account at 5:36 pm.

Throughout the Fall semester and beyond, ILL staff will continue to test and implement other time-saving processes in conjunction with the new system?Äôs functionality that can reduce the overall turnaround time for all ILL requests.

-Submitted by Francie Mrkich