Quick Summary
Becky Ringwelski shares the latest news on the interlibrary loan systems updates that affect libraries in our region.
There are three interlibrary loan systems that are widely used in Minnesota that will be replaced in the coming months or years. The first group to make the switch will be MnPALS libraries that will be moving off of the current Aleph ILL system and onto the Alma ILL system in late January 2019. Minitex staff have been working closely with University of Minnesota staff as well as Sonja Eilertson from PALS to make sure the needed functionality is in place by the go-live date. Agnes Lee from Minitex has been working on the testing on our end and has confidence that we will be able to manage requests on the system when it is implemented.
The second system has already been implemented in five libraries in Minnesota. That is the Tipasa ILL product that is replacing ILLiad. OCLC has divided libraries into three groups depending on the complexity of their ILL software needs and whether they are using WorldShare Management Services as a library system. Tipasa has been rolled out to most of the group one libraries with group two libraries expected to migrate in the coming year. There is no timeline for group three libraries. The University of Minnesota is in group three and Minitex would also be in that group. There was a recent announcement that a new agreement has been struck with Atlas to continue development on ILLiad beyond bug fixes but details on that have not been shared yet. It's possible the timeline for libraries that have not already moved to Tipasa will be altered given this update to the ILLiad agreement.
The third ILL system change we have coming is MNLINK VDX interlibrary loan which will be moving to Relais D2D (Discovery to Delivery). There is no timeline for that move yet. This would impact all VDX implementations in North America. Nick Banitt and Becky Ringwelski have been involved in numerous meetings with Relais staff to learn more about Relais D2D and to convey our needs. It is expected that MNLINK would be one of the last VDX sites to move to Relais given our more complex use of VDX.
This news is the latest we have heard on the various systems. Minitex staff will keep abreast of the updates to this news and will distribute additional information that we think will be helpful to our libraries.
