From your 1998-99 OCLC Users' Council Delegates:
Arlene Luster Marcia Talley
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ph: 808-449-2209 ph: 410-293-6905
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> FOR MORE INFORMATION:
> Barbara McFadden Allen
> CIC Center for Library Initiatives
> Phone: 217-333-8475
> Fax: 217-244-7127
> [log in to unmask]
>
> CIC AND OCLC TRANSFORM INTERLIBRARY LOAN SERVICES WITH NEW AGREEMENT
>
> Champaign, IL, October 16, 1998--The management of document delivery
> and interlibrary loan services will undergo dramatic change and
> improvement as a result of a new partnership between 13 major research
> libraries and OCLC Online Computer Library Center. The Committee on
> Institutional Cooperation (CIC) and OCLC have signed an agreement for
> the development of an entirely new interlibrary loan and document
> delivery system as part of the ongoing development of the CIC Virtual
> Electronic Library (VEL).
>
> Originally funded through a $1.2 million Title IIA grant from the U.S.
> Department of Education, the VEL links the online public access
> catalogs of the CIC university libraries, provides a web-based patron
> interface, and allows patrons to initiate their own requests. For
> more information on the VEL, visit
> http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/cli/accessvel.html.
>
> "As we broaden and improve the resource discovery process for our
> users through other aspects of the VEL, it is critical that we provide
> users with improved access to those resources--wherever they are
> held," said Beth Forrest Warner, Interim Assistant Director for
> Technical, Access, and Systems Services, University of Michigan, and
> Chair, CIC VEL Technical Specifications Task Force. "It is equally
> critical that we find ways to streamline procedures and contain unit
> costs in order to keep pace with the demands of today's researchers.
> The combination of the CIC's vision for improved service delivery and
> OCLC's experience with interlibrary loan should provide libraries with
> new tools to achieve both these goals through the distributed system
> currently under development."
>
> Building on the existing VEL implementation, the new system will
> manage interlibrary loan traffic between the CIC member libraries,
> other libraries outside the CIC, national bibliographic systems, and
> commercial document suppliers. The software will automate patron
> authentication; the initiation, processing, and tracking of requests;
> and will report on the call number, shelf location, and availability
> of any item at the point of request. Additional development will
> enable "remote circulation" of items, copyright tracking, financial
> transactions for fee-based access, and statistical reporting. The
> software is being tested in three CIC university libraries this fall,
> with delivery of the software to all CIC libraries scheduled for 1999.
>
> "Our aim has been to completely redesign our interlibrary loan and
> document delivery services within the CIC to minimize the barriers-of
> both time and distance-between our users and the information they
> need," said Sharon Hogan, University Librarian, University of Illinois
> at Chicago and Chair of the CIC Library Directors. "Traditional
> interlibrary loan processes and tools just did not match our vision of
> the future of these services, and I think the system we've designed
> will meet not just our needs within the CIC, but the needs of all
> kinds of libraries. It truly is a milestone in the profession."
>
> OCLC developed the system on a client/server architecture utilizing
> the ISO10160/161 protocol, which meets system specifications and
> functionality identified by a team of CIC librarians. Beth Forrest
> Warner, Interim Assistant Director for Technical, Access, and Systems
> Services, University of Michigan, chairs the specifications team,
> which includes Anne Beaubien, University of Michigan; Robert
> Daugherty, University of Illinois at Chicago; Mary Hollerich,
> Northwestern University; Susan Logan, Ohio State University; Chris
> Loring, University of Minnesota; Harry Samuels, Northwestern
> University; and Jim Vaughan, University of Chicago.
>
> "By basing the new system on the ISO ILL protocol, CIC and OCLC will
> be leaders in the implementation of the international standard for ILL
> communication in the United States," said Mary Jackson, Senior Program
> Officer for Access Services, Association of Research Libraries. "CIC's
> requirement for building the new system using the ISO ILL protocol and
> OCLC's commitment to the protocol are the foundations on which other
> libraries in the U.S., and internationally, will be able to transmit
> ILL requests electronically."
>
> "This software represents an exciting step forward in resource
> sharing. It automates much of the ILL process and will allow libraries
> to get rid of their paper files," said Georgia Brown, Vice President,
> OCLC Product Development. "The development effort, which improves
> access across platforms and increases system interoperability, will
> benefit the CIC libraries, as well as all OCLC members who use the
> OCLC Interlibrary Loan service."
>
> Founded in 1958, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC),
> with headquarters in Champaign, Illinois, is the academic consortium
> of the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago. Member
> institutions include: the University of Chicago, the University of
> Illinois, Indiana University, the University of Iowa, the University
> of Michigan, Michigan State University, the University of Minnesota,
> Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State
> University, Purdue University, and the University of
> Wisconsin-Madison. Cooperative ventures at all levels have arisen,
> giving the CIC a forty-year history of effective voluntary
> inter-institutional cooperation among these independent universities.
> For more information about the CIC, consult their web site at
> http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/.
>
> Based in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a
> nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research
> organization whose computer network and services link more than 27,000
> libraries in 65 countries and territories http://www.oclc.org/.
>
> ###
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