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Dakota County Library System
From left: Jo Bunn, Carolee Eide, Evan Kelley, Linda Shaw.
Not pictured: Jeanette Hall and Maureen Gormley, ILL supervisor.
Originally published in Resource Sharing News
April 2007
The interlibrary loan (ILL) office of the Dakota County Library System (DCB) is located at the Wescott Branch in Eagan, Minnesota. Like most public libraries, the collection is diverse, but as Evan Kelley, who works in ILL says, "we do a huge business in public library materials that no one library is big enough to have; interlibrary loan requests are for everything under the sun, from technical to romance."
Four years ago, Evan and Jo Bunn, the ILL Office Specialist, attended a training session on the VDX Interlibrary Loan system. A few weeks later, DCB was in the first group of libraries to start using the VDX ILL system in the Minitex region in January 2003. Since that time, there have been dramatic changes in the ILL process and the incoming request volume, which Dakota County has successfully managed by making some major changes.
In the beginning, Evan remembers, "It was a very stressful and difficult start up. The system didn't quite work perfectly either." At the time, the ILL office was using two systems which added to the pressure. Then, when the "Get it!" button became available to the public on the MnLINK Gateway, Dakota County, like all of the VDX libraries, saw their volume go through the roof.
Fortunately, they have had the advantage of a supportive and experienced ILL supporter in their director, Ken Behringer, who previously served as the MnLINK Director. Consequently, he understood why the ILL office needed more staff to handle the increasing request traffic. Now, in addition to Evan and Jo, Linda Shaw and Carolee Eide assist with processing for several hours a day. Jeanette Hall also steps in to aid ILL when needed.
While extra staffing was required to manage the skyrocketing request numbers, some of the features of the VDX software allow the ILL office staff to process more requests with less than a corresponding addition of staff. For instance, when rethinking some of the former processes, the staff decided that they could no longer keep track of all the requests as they had in the past. VDX is a self service system that allows patrons to check the status of their requests electronically. It allowed Dakota staff to get rid of item request cards, and the filing that goes with that process.
In addition, VDX automatically balances requests among the libraries, which helps keep the incoming workload consistent. Evan notes that "there is huge unmet, insatiable demand for popular music CD and DVD materials. It really smacked you in the face when you looked at the (ILL) requests." Lending and borrowing audiovisual materials account for a large percentage of the increasing request volume on VDX; however, Evan keeps things on an upbeat tone when he introduces VDX to staff. He emphasizes that the system works (with some idiosyncrasies), and the patrons LOVE it!