From Big Deal to Big Service Creating a Rush Delivery Service for Faculty Nora Allred, Michigan Technological University Great Lakes Resource Sharing Conference, June 10, 2016

Prologue Breaking up is hard to do

Fall 2014 Years of flat budgets Dwindling gift funds Unsatisfactory negotiations with providers

An Unpleasant Truth Our current subscription packages were unsustainable in our fiscal environment

A Tough Decision Large bundled or “big deal” subscriptions with Elsevier and Springer were abandoned for 2015

Part One Where do we go from here

Create an Optimal Collection Faculty identified most essential titles for their research Historical usage data carefully analyzed Borrowing patterns examined Title-level subscription costs considered

Create an Optimal Collection Faculty identified most essential titles for their research Historical usage data carefully analyzed Borrowing patterns examined Title-level subscription costs considered Result: A lean, yet targeted collection of subscribed journals

Create an Optimal Service Not all “essential” titles could be included in subscriptions Library would provide an expedited service for providing essential content on demand from faculty Interlibrary Loan was the logical place for our new service

Create an Optimal Service Not all “essential” titles could be included in subscriptions Library would provide an expedited service for providing essential content on demand from faculty Interlibrary Loan was the logical place for our new service Serials budget would pay for service Result: An effective rush service for faculty

Part Two We can work it out

Ideal Service Model Easy/intuitive for faculty to use High-quality PDF scans Service available seven days a week Delivery in four hours or less Manageable workflow for staff

Considered but Discarded Models Direct purchase accounts Hard to monitor budget allocations Track multiple vendors Mediated token accounts Confusing interface Undue burden on staff RapidILL Document Supplier pod Could not ensure a four-hour or less delivery Five day a week service

Selected Service model Reprints Desk Academic A to Z addon with ILLiad Faculty were already familiar with ILLiad A single “brand neutral” system Reprints Desk Academic A to Z collection contained most of the titles we dropped Reprints Desk guaranteed four-hour or less delivery via Odyssey

Part Three Cha, Cha, Cha, Changes

Changes made to provide service ILLiad webpages and client Days and hours of service Staffing and workflow

ILLiad: RUSH option added to article request form in faculty accounts

ILLIad: Routing rules and RUSH queue created in staff client

ILLiad: “RUSH Unavailable” custom email Requests submitted as outside RUSH service hours Content unavailable through Reprints Desk A to Z Academic Service Incomplete or unverified citations

Schedule for Service ILL borrowing expanded from five to seven days a week Ensure all requests were processed daily Reduce delivery times overall RUSH scheduled for “peak” service hours: 9:00AM – 5:00PM Monday through Friday 1:00PM – 5:00PM Saturday and Sunday

Strategic Use of Staff ILL staff covered bulk of RUSH request hours Access Services staff already performed ILL lending and document delivery services Trained Access Services staff scheduled during evenings and weekends in RUSH processing and “borrowing backup” 37 staff hours available weekly to support RUSH service

RUSH and “Borrowing Backup” Procedures Hours and purposes of services Illustrated step-by-step workflow Process for “RUSH unavailable” Backup borrowing a narrowly defined, simplified version of regular borrowing Allowed easy requests to be processed and filled daily All challenging requests

Part Four Every picture tells a story

RUSH pilot March through August 2015 Half of Spring term and all of Summer term Aimed to serve faculty doing research

Total article requests from faculty 341

RUSH requests 195 57%

Filled as RUSH 168 86%

Received and filled outside RUSH hours 24 12%

Unfilled 3 2%

Average RUSH article cost $24.50

129 41 22 When RUSH Service Used Schedule Mon – Fri: 9-5 Evenings Weekends Number of Requests Received 129 41 22

Top 5 Departments Using RUSH Total RUSH Requests Number of Faculty Placing Requests Materials Science 68 5 Humanities 30 7 Mechanical Engineering 24 Social Sciences 11 Mathematics 10 1

Epilogue Baby what a big surprise

Survey Results Extremely low response rate (less than 1%) “Satisfied” with RUSH service Interlibrary loan service “Very Important” to scholarly activities Comment: “Regular ILL is so fast, I don’t need to use RUSH”

What we don’t know (and dare we ask?) How many faculty “phone a friend” at another institution? I Can Haz a PDF? SciHub? We will try another survey round in the fall

Staff do see a “Big Picture” Staff used the library’s “pull and scan” service to fill RUSH requests This was not included in procedure Service not practical for filling RUSH requests Staff were concerned about costs July 17, 2015 A bad day in RUSH processing A very, very bad day….

Redefining the “Big Picture” Processes and methods are not enough Rationale for a new service is not enough Staff must be given explicit instructions AND the logic behind them

Questions? Thank you! Nora Allred Van Pelt & Opie Library Michigan Technological University nsallred@mtu.edu