Interlibrary Loan Process Annotations: Transition From Physical to Electronic

1. Interlibrary Loan Process Annotations: Transition From Physical to Electronic Lili Luo & Dave West Annotation Project

2. Why we are interested in ILL annotations? • ILL cards are full of librarians’ notes – a rich data source for annotation studies. • ILL requests processing power doubled after the migration from card-based to electronic system –- more efficient, but is there anything missing? • Librarians still make notes in the electronic system – what are they like? Annotation Project

3. Research Questions Cards How the ILL process has been migrated from cards to electronic system? progression Electronic System What role the “note” field plays in the electronic ILL process? Annotation Project

4. How we have proceeded with the study? • Invite ILL librarians to collaborate on the exploration • Analyze annotation patterns on the ILL cards • Determine how much of the card-based manual annotations have been incorporated in the electronic system as an automatic component • Analyze annotation patterns of the electronic notes Annotation Project

5. Analyzing annotations on ILL Cards • A training set of 167 cards – preliminary analysis resulted in a framework of annotations • Validating the framework – randomly sampled 2000 cards out of an estimated 22,000 cards (1996-1999), compared the framework against the annotations on these cards, and made revisions accordingly • Established the final framework of annotations on ILL cards Annotation Project

6. Let’s look at an example • Front side of an ILL card • Back side of an ILL card Annotation Project

9. Card-based annotations analysis results • Meta information – information that identifies the card (front side) • Notes on the information user fill out about the requested item, such as author, title, acceptable charges, etc.(front side) • Notes on the ILL process (back side) • Procedural notes • Miscellaneous notes Annotation Project

10. On the upper left corner – ID assigned to each request when it comes in [stamp] On the left edge – the date when the request is received [stamp] Meta-information On the lower right corner -- due date of the requested item and users’ name [handwritten] On the lower left corner – the date when the requested item comes in [stamp]

11. L shaped marks -- indicate this information has been verified by librarians [in red ink] Square brackets – [in red ink] Handwritten notes on the card – add/correct information about the requested item [in red ink or in pencil] Handwritten notes on a piece of paper attached to the card – put in information about the requested item that exceeds the space limit of the card Notes on users’ input Yellow highlighter – highlight document type, such as dissertation or thesis, and cancellation date if there is one Circle– highlight things like loan charges and book edition; if the user writes down the acceptable charge amount in stead of checking one of the preset amounts, a note of “oked by patron” is added. [in red ink]

12. ILL number from OCLC [in red ink] session number from OCLC, and the names of the available lending libraries; the session number was highlighted in red circle for emphasis Search the requested item marks next to a list of other catalogs than OCLC that need to be checked for the availability of the requested item; and the symbol Ø means “none”, and “cc” means card catalog. [in pencil] Procedural notes on the ILL process list the sequence of lending librarians the request will be sent to; the one that lent the item is circled in red Identify the lending library Cost information coupon, charges, postage the date of arrival Arrival of the requested loan user notification means loan status upon arrival the date when the loan was checked in Return of the requested loan shipping information loan status when checked back in

13. The ILL request processing date The temporary saving file number for the request A copy of transaction record, or a transcript of email to the user attached to the card – with librarians’ notes on it (sometimes) as evidence of a specific status of the requested item, such as when the items couldn’t be obtained due to certain restrictions, or when the transaction was deleted Miscellaneous notes on the ILL process Yellow sticky notes attached on the card – as a reminder, for example, to explain why a user canceled the request, why the request was split into two cards, or ask others to check on a request when it was bounced back by the first attempt If the request is canceled, unfilled or filled in-house, a note is made and dated on the front of the card [in red ink]

14. From cards to ILLiad (the electronic system) Most of the manual notes on the ILL cards have been automated in the electronic system. Some of the notes are still manually input into ILLIAD. Annotation Project

15. Different queues for different request status

16. Information about the request, mostly filled out by users. It’s similar to the front side of the card.

17. This is the OCLC search interface. The highlighted session number here used to be written down on the back side of the card.

18. System-generated lending libraries. This information used to be written down on the back side of the card.

19. The note field in ILLiad.

20. ILL Cards ILLiad Handwritten notes on the card, or on a piece of paper attached to the card – add/correct information about the requested item [in red ink or in pencil] Librarians can manually change the information about the requested item in the system, but the changes will not be tracked. Yellow sticky notes attached on the card – as a reminder, for example, to explain why a user canceled the request, why the request was split into two cards, or ask others to check on a request when it was bounced back by the first attempt Librarians make notes in the general note field as reminders. But categories of these reminders are not necessarily the same with those on the cards Librarians make notes about loan status in the general note field Loan status upon arrival and when checked back in; user notification Librarians make notes in a different note field on things to be printed out on the yellow sleeve for requested loans

21. Analyzing the ILL annotations in ILLiad • Compared a sample of 2,000 ILL note cards to a random sample of 1975 ILLiad Transactions • Every field on the ILL note card is available for study • So far have focused on the “Notes” field and the “Cited In” field from the ILLiad records Annotation Project

22. “Cited In” Field Comparison • 60% of ILL cards contain source information from users (1190 out of 2,000) • 54% of ILLiad transactions contain source information from users (1071 out of 1,975) Annotation Project

23. “Note” Field Comparison • 18% of ILL cards have user made comments (368 out of 2,000) • 36% of ILLiad transactions have user made comments (706 out of 1,975) Annotation Project

24. “Note” Field Comparison • Why so many more comments? • 60 “Thank You” comments • 37 “Please Hurry” comments • Other oddities not frequent enough to comment on Annotation Project

25. “Note” Field Comparison • Unclear how many of ILL cards have librarian made comments • 93% of ILLiad transactions have librarian made comments (1828 out of 1,975) Annotation Project