Inter-Library Loan / transit rate fulfilment

As you're aware, part of the PLS team is still in "implementation mode" for the One Card project, however we're also interested in doing some data analysis of how the consortium is performing.  While we haven't had a great amount of time and resources to do this work, some recent analysis of the rate of "hold fulfilment" has been undertaken.  The work was initiated as part of the project which is evaluating how well the project is fulfilling the original business case for the project.  However given the various anecdotes and perceptions around this topic I thought it was useful data to share.  We're still learning how to both gather and then interpret the data that we are getting out of Director's Station, but believe that the information below is accurate.

PLS staff looked at the holds filled and not filled over a 6 month period from October 2013 to March 2014 inclusive.  During this period over 390,000 holds were fulfilled or remained unfilled. 

The graph below shows the "fill rate" for these requests.  It shows us that while only 17% of requests were filled in the 1st month,  44% of requests were filled within 2 months, 67% were filled within 3 months & 85% were filled within 4 months.  These figures will change from time to time, but this 1st set of measures gives us a starting point from which to measure our performance.

 

From my experience in libraries, being able to fill 67% of all requests within 3 months is a very high success rate. It also gives us some preliminary information when talking to customers about the sorts of waiting times that they can expect - on average at least.  

 

 

 We will continue to run these reports from time to time & provide updates on this and other areas of the consortium's performance as we have such information to report.

 

De-duplication continues to deliver benefits

As anyone using the system will know, the issue of duplicate bibliographic records continues to be one of our biggest hurdles to efficiency, in terms of searching for items in specific libraries, managing "holds," the number of items in transit, cataloguing to the correct bib records and other areas.  Some libraries are performing manual "transferring" - i.e. resolving these duplicate records, which is to the benefit of all who use the system.

To attempt to speed up this process we engaged SirsiDynix to run a de-duplication script across the database over Easter, with the intent to merge as many bibliographic records as we could find exact match points for. The script has managed to merge over 20,000 records, which is a great outcome.  

The process also identified a further 1,300 records which could be merged, however they have items with the status of "in transit" which stops the merge happening.  Therefore the script will continue to be run a number of times over the next week or so with the intent of resolving these items as their status changes from "in transit".

We will continue to run de-duplication scripts from time to time, however there are a significant number of records on the system which cannot be resolved using automated scripting.  Therefore we will need to use a concerted approach of staff fixing these intractable records.

PLS will be working with the LMS User Group to identify an equitable way of assigning this transferring work, with the aim of having a much cleaner database in the coming months.  We will keep you posted as to how this progresses.

Tumby Bay goes live

The Tumby Bay School Community Library went live On Thursday last week (10 April), just in time for the School Holidays.  I have held off posting about the library until some photos of the day came through.

The Library's Enterprise site is here.  

The LMS project office is marking this addition to the consortium as it completes the rollout of the network to all libraries on the Eyre Peninsula.

Fran Oswald, the library's teacher librarian sent me the following message about the project: 

Here at Tumby Bay we are all extremely excited to finally go live and join the consortium.

I would like to thank my two staff members Kerrie and Jane for their hard work (especially while I was holidaying for three weeks in South Africa prior to our go live date.) A HUGE thankyou must go to Sue and the team at PLS for all their help and guidance during this busy time.

 

Fran has also provided us with a few photos of the day - with a combination of eager public and school customers happy to test the system and enjoy the library's hospitality. 



Local public customers - the 1st to use the system,
with library staff Kerry and Jane in the background

School students learning about the new system before joining the festivities

They tell us that the principal was blown away by the system

Students enjoying the cupcakes galore as part of the celebration

 

Franklin Harbour goes live

Where is Franklin Harbour I hear you ask.  It is the name of the council which includes the town of Cowell on the Eyre Peninsula where there is a School Community Library. The library joined the consortium on Thursday last week (3 April) but we've held off publicising it as I've waited to get some photos of both Thursday and Friday at the library. 

The "go live" on Thursday was followed by a "twilight day" at the school on Friday.  The school opened at noon and stayed open into the evening to provide parents & the wider community an opportunity to attend and view all of the school's activities.  This provided a perfect opportunity for the Mayor to do an official launch of Cowell joining the rapidly expanding consortium.

Library staff tell me that they slept well on the weekend after the huge amount of work it took their small team to get their library onto the consortium.

The Enterprise site for the library can be found here.

We are now just waiting for Tumby Bay to join & that will mean that all of the Eyre Peninsula will be consortium participants.

Below are a few photos of Thursday & Friday at Cowell.

Staff at Cowell checking out items on the new system

 

Students using Enterprise for the 1st time



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