by Nick Banitt
Quick Summary
The MNLINK users group meeting was held October 26. The group received an update on ReShare implementation progress to replace VDX interlibrary loan service, and discussed the topic of who should be involved with this group.
The last MNLINK users group meeting of 2023 was held on Thursday Oct. 26. Progress towards a replacement service was the primary focus of the meeting, but related issues about how to manage winding down existing requests with our current service and planning for the future of the MNLINK users group community were also discussed.
The implementation progress of the new service using ReShare for interlibrary loan request management with VuFind as the end user discovery portal was the primary focus of the meeting. Work is winding down around gathering information from the participating libraries about their collections and technology integration. The new service will have a custom database which is growing quickly. The service aggregates the MNLINK participating libraries’ collections. Libraries have started exporting their records and holdings to build the database, with detailed focus on comparing the information provided earlier to confirm the mapping details to ingest these records.
The users group community has evolved a little since the initial launch of the MNLINK statewide resource sharing program in 2004. The service transition to a new software and host provide a good opportunity to revisit questions about inclusivity for involvement. The questions about who and what make up the MNLINK users community were proposed for feedback. Any additional feedback about these questions are welcome. This issue was also proposed for the MNLINK Operations Committee, which will create a charge proposal to define user involvement.
A conversation was started to examine what needs to be done by the interlibrary loan staff users to ease the transition and close down as many requests as possible. Existing requests will not be imported into the new service. There was strong suggestion that a follow-up meeting should be convened soon to discuss what can and should be done. A meeting has now been scheduled for November 16.
Thanks to everyone who attended the meeting, and for participating in the community! Please reach out if you have any questions.
