Changing tools, changing habits, changing workflows: Recent evolutions of the interlibrary loan service at ULiege Library (2305.13024v3)

Abstract: Over the last few years, the interlibrary loan (ILL) service of the University of Li`ege Library has evolved considerably, both in terms of habits and workflows. In this article, we will explain the main stages of this evolution: (1) first reduction in the number of ILL units (from eight to five) and involved operators (from 15 to 10) within the homemade ILL solution (2015); (2) use of the resource sharing (RS) functionality in the new Alma library management system (2015); (3) second reduction in the number of ILL units (from five to only one) and in involved operators (from 10 to six) (2018); (4) subscription to an international broker ILL system (RapidILL) for electronic and digital materials and its integration with Alma (2020); (5) project of peer-to-peer resource sharing for print materials between Alma instances of university and research libraries in Belgium (2022), and (temporary) free ILL service to all University users (2020-2022). The aim of these changes is to harmonise the practices of ILL operators, reduce the quantity of manual and administrative operations and tasks devoted to ILL and supply materials that do not belong to the library collections in a fairer, faster and more fluid way. While all of these changes have been implemented gradually over the years, not all of them have been deployed in a concerted manner among all stakeholders.