| Fretwell-Downing, Inc. has announced that the
University of California (UC) libraries will expand their Request interlibrary
loan (ILL) service to include new user and staff functions. Scheduled to
conclude by the middle of this year, the UC libraries will take this major
step forward in campuswide resource sharing through a partnership between
the California Digital Library (CDL) and Fretwell-Downing.
"Adding Fretwell-Downing's technology to the University
of California's suite of interlibrary loan tools is a great way to share
collections among the 10 UC campuses," said Beverlee French, the California
Digital Library's interim university librarian. "Now a researcher or student
at any campus will easily be able to request materials from any other campus,
check the status of the request for print materials, and, where available,
receive the items via online desktop delivery."
According to the announcement, the CDL selected
Fretwell-Downing's services because it needed a system to provide all the
functionality that its current ILL systems offered, plus a complete integration
of all ILL work-flow processing.
Another feature created by Fretwell-Downing's
software is the ability to let the UC library ILL staff handle growing
volumes of loans and concentrate on service enhancements. Also, with the
new OpenURL technology, the extended UC ILL services can include materials
found in commercially produced article databases licensed by the California
Digital Library. The combination of the Request service and OpenURL technology
allows UC scholars, students, and staff to initiate a request directly
from the commercial database search results screens.
As a digital "co-library" complementing the physical
libraries of the University of California system, the CDL is committed
not only to digital content, but also to using technology innovations to
share library resources among the more than 315,000 members of the university
community.
Source: Fretwell-Downing, Inc., Overland Park,
KS, 888/649-6542; http://www.fdusa.com. |
