WorldShare Interlibrary Loan release notes, June 2024

Administrative actions

These items require immediate action or decisions.

Follow-up actions

In an effort to keep your staff informed of new features and changes, you may also want to consider these items.

Utilize the improved dashboard to more easily track turnaround times

The turnaround time dashboard, located on the WorldShare ILL Home page, provides you with the average amount of time for your library's copy or loan requests—as a lender and as a borrower. It can help you monitor your turnaround statistics and observe the impact of changes you make to your ILL workflows. 

Previously, the dashboard displayed a chart for borrowing followed by a chart for lending. Now, two separate tabs are available for lending and borrowing.

By default, average turnaround times for copies are displayed. A line displays at 18 hours to show where your library's turnaround time falls with respect to qualifying for OCLC's Express digital delivery program. To learn more, see Express program.

To see average loan turnaround times for loans or both copies and loans, use the radio buttons located in the top right corner of the chart. 

To see turnaround times for borrowing, click the Borrowing tab located at the top of the chart.

For more information, see Turnaround time dashboards.

View the pickup location code in the request details

With the April 2024 release, you gained the ability to centrally define pickup location names and codes in OCLC Service Configuration for improved circulation integration, request transfer, and general coordination and communication within your library. See WorldShare ILL release notes, April 2024.

When present, the pickup location code now displays in the staff interface within the patron section of the request details.

Send email notifications to your library's patrons about their ILL transactions

For libraries with Resource Sharing for Groups

If you have a WorldShare ILL Admin role at a library with Resource Sharing for Groups, you can now set up email templates and send automatic or manual notifications to your library's patrons.

The following notification templates are available:

• Newly registered user approved
• New request acknowledged
• Additional information required (manual only)
• Request cancelled confirmation
• Article available in Article Exchange
• Loan available for pickup 
• Item about to be due
• Item overdue - 1st notice
• Item overdue - 2nd notice
• Item overdue - 3rd notice 

To configure your email templates, to go OCLC Service Configuration > WorldShare ILL > Notifications and open the section for Borrowing Library to Patron.

You can choose to enable one or more templates for automated or manual sending.

Automated emails are sent when the request moves to the appropriate status. For example, if the Request cancelled confirmation is enabled for automatic sending, it will be sent when the request moves to the status of "cancelled".

You can manually send notifications by using the Email feature in the staff interface. 

Select the template for the email you'd like to send, and edit the information in the fields to meet your needs. Note that the "To Email" defaults to the patron email and is editable.

Notes 

• The "To Email" defaults to the patron email associated with the request, and it is editable.
• Enabling both automatic and manual sending for a template can result in two similar or duplicate emails being sent to the patron.

For more information, see OCLC Service Configuration or Borrowing Requests.

Manage configurations for all libraries in your group

For libraries with Resource Sharing for Groups

A new WorldShare ILL Group Manager role is now available for libraries with Resource Sharing for Groups. With this role, you now have the ability to update configurations for all libraries in your group.

First, sign into OCLC Service Configuration with your group admin account. You'll see an button at the top that allows you to change among the institutions in your group. Select the institution you wish to configure, then go to the appropriate page, e.g., Automatic Request Manager. 

You'll need to change institutions, make updates, and save changes for each institution that needs to be updated.

For more information, see OCLC Service Configuration.

Utilize enhancements to the WorldShare ILL request form to autopopulate patron fields and link requests to patrons

For libraries with WMS or Resource Sharing for Groups

The WorldShare ILL request form, which became available in early 2023, allows your library's patrons to submit requests from any OpenURL-compliant discovery service or by using a blank form.

When a patron is signed into their account before creating a request, patron fields such as their name, barcode or patron ID, and email address are now autopopulated on the form. Previously, the patron fields were not autopopulated.

Patron section of the WorldShare ILL request form

When the patron submits the request, their barcode or patron ID is now also included with the request. In the staff interface, you'll see that the request is automatically linked to the patron and the patron fields are populated.

Linked patron in the staff interface

Additional patron fields can be populated if additional data is included in patron accounts. 

Note: If your library has set up IP ranges in OCLC Service Configuration, patrons can continue to use IP authentication for accessing the form and submitting requests. When IP ranges are set, sign-in is not required to submit a request.

For more information, see Create and edit requests and Patron data files.

Staff interface being modernized for improved accessibility, usability, and navigation 

In early 2024, the OCLC Resource Sharing Team began a project to modernize the WorldShare ILL staff interface. The modernization does not introduce new functionality but will improve accessibility, usability, and navigation, ensuring clearer organization of information as well as the use of modern components, elements, and behaviors.

Modernized pages will be rolled out and released in a two-phase process. Libraries that participate in the "preview" group will see and use the new pages one release prior to other WorldShare ILL libraries. The release of modernized pages began earlier this year.

No new preview features are included with the June 2024 release for WorldShare ILL. For upcoming releases, the list above will be updated with additional pages.

If your library team is interested in being included in the preview group, please send an email to oclcresourcesharing@oclc.org. 

For more information, please see the January 31 session of Product Insights: Resource Sharing (timestamp 13:05).

Product Insights

To help you become familiar with the new features, enhancements, and improvements included in this release, please attend the upcoming webinar Product Insights: Resource Sharing.

Date: Thursday, October 16, 2:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time
Registration: https://community.oclc.org/t5/resour...sharing-events

Please note the session time zones when registering. The sessions will be recorded and archived for future viewing on the OCLC Community Center. Please register, even if you cannot attend, to receive a link to the recorded session.

OCLC Resource Sharing Conference web series 

OCLC invites you to register for upcoming presentations in the 2024 OCLC Resource Sharing Conference (RSC24) web series. This year’s series of free, virtual sessions focuses on topics of interest to the OCLC interlibrary loan community. Recordings and slides for past sessions are available in the community center. 

Virtual Workshop Series: Learn how to fine-tune your ILL setup

• Part 1: Fine-tune your policies and deflections (recording, slides, and checklist available)
• Part 2: Construct your custom holdings (recording, slides, and checklist available)
• Part 3: Automate your request process (recording, slides, and checklist available)
• Part 4: Curate and care for your constant data (recording, slides, and checklist available)
• Part 5: Make your usage statistics count (recording, slides, and checklist available)

Support websites

Support information for this product and related products can be found at:

• WorldShare Interlibrary Loan
• Contact OCLC Support
• OCLC Community Center
• Browser compatibility chart