Brief description of the IDS Project

March 2008

Academic libraries today face increased demands for immediate access to extensive resource materials as well as escalating costs for collections and new technologies. Students who have come of age amidst the exponential growth of knowledge and powerful new discovery tools expect access to needed information and materials at Internet speeds. The growth of undergraduate research programs, capstone courses, distance learning, as well as increased competition for faculty research dollars and new curricula, have dramatically increased the need for information resources.

Throughout the 1990s, the libraries at the 64 State University of New York (SUNY) campuses experienced major reductions in State funding and simultaneously faced double-digit annual inflationary price increases for their library resources. Staff, equipment, facilities maintenance, and information resources were continually reduced while campus enrollments and demand for the information resources required to support new courses and programs grew relentlessly. Any hope for a reprieve from such constant State budgetary constraints was eliminated on September 11, 2001.

Library directors from twelve Arts & Sciences Comprehensive colleges recognized that a radical new approach to resource sharing needed to be developed, and met to explore possible new cooperative strategies. After rigorous debate, it was mutually agreed by the directors to adopt a unified collection perspective. They endorsed a new reality of institutional interdependence that was ultimately reflected in what is now an acknowledged truth within the IDS Project libraries: "Your library is my library! My library is your library!" Gaining director and later staff acceptance to even pilot test such a dramatic shift in cross-institutional expectations was difficult, but the lack of any known viable alternative caused battle-hardened, veteran directors to fully commit to what has become an exciting and effective resource sharing project with a number of unique features.

Several elements combined to make the IDS Project work as an excellent solution for today's resource sharing challenges. The Project engendered a strong sense of community among its members. An annual summer conference with presentations, workshops, and breakout sessions serves to explore and resolve critical resource sharing policy and procedural issues. The Project Listserv and extensive website, which includes staff photos and contact information, personalize and reinforce relationships.

The Director of each IDS member library signs an annual contract agreeing to support the goals of the Project and the requirements of participation. The major goal is "to continually implement and objectively evaluate innovative resource-sharing strategies, policies and procedures that will optimize mutual access to the information resources of all IDS Project Libraries."

For benchmarking purposes, the IDS Project uses a standardized definition of an ILL transaction which is defined as "from the time the patron places a request until the time the patron is notified the loan is ready for pickup or the article is ready to be retrieved from the Web." To minimize the time needed for a transaction, member libraries agree to common policies and procedures such as meeting transaction standards which set the goal of average delivery time for articles at 48 hours and at 72 hours for loans (weekends and holidays excluded).

Other requirements are standardized sending and receiving methods for electronic and physical materials; use of unmediated processing (Direct Request); transmitting all items with high quality reproduction, and bibliographic accuracy; utilizing the Odyssey "trusted lender" option wherever possible; identifying a Local Project Coordinator; attending the annual summer conference. Common systems include the OCLC ILL System, ILLiad ILL management software, and a statewide delivery system. Member libraries are also required to provide direct access for the IDS Project Systems Administrator to their ILLiad database stored locally at each campus on an SQL server.

Each new IDS library is assigned a two-person trained volunteer mentor team composed of an applications specialist and a technical systems specialist. These mentors travel from participating libraries to assist ILL staff at new member libraries in any way possible so they can quickly optimize the use of OCLC, ILLiad, and the special IDS Project software for effective resource sharing.

The IDS Project developed and utilizes two unique software programs critical to the Project's success: an eJournal Availability Server and the ILL Transaction Performance Analysis Module (TPAM). The inability to identify electronic journals held by the Project's members was a significant barrier to effective resource sharing, resulting in libraries often not sharing their electronic resources through ILL. Geneseo staff, who had been developing the IDS Project, found that if member libraries knew the collective holdings of their electronic journals, up to an additional 35% of journal article requests could be filled within the Project. The eJournal Availability Server solves this problem by displaying complete holdings and ILL licensing information within the ILLiad client. The holdings data for Project libraries is harvested monthly from their OpenURL resolvers by the Project's Systems Administrator.

The IDS Project promotes cooperation through mutual accountability. "Trust but verify" is the guideline. In order to accomplish this, the TPAM is used for extensive, rigorous data analysis that creates a basis for informed decision-making. It queries transaction data from each IDS Project member library's ILLiad server and creates graphical displays useful for understanding and analyzing each step of every ILL transaction from the time a patron submits a request until the patron is notified the material has arrived. The TPAM compiles the data to show overall effectiveness in meeting the performance time standards for all Project libraries or for any pair of libraries. Unique hierarchically linked charts and tables, available on demand for any time period, enable IDS members to easily determine internal operational changes necessary to meet project standards and diagnose problems across the system. As a result, performance improvement since the inception of the program in 2004 has been dramatic in IDS Project libraries:

Solid data gained from the IDS Project suggest that in combining the elements identified above, the IDS Project presents an innovative, low cost, easy-to-replicate strategy that can drastically improve the resource sharing process.

Our presentation will focus on the new mentoring program, knowledge gained from our experiences to date, and the next steps in the ongoing development of the IDS Project.

More information about the IDS Project is available at: IDSProject.org.