From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 01:42:07 +0000

>I've never seen an ILL
>department  ask the questions (with their implied back and forth
>interrogation you are suggesting.

What I'm suggesting wouldn't involve any back-and-forth at all, and
certainly no interrogation. We already ask our patrons to fill out a form
when they want ILL or docdel. What I'm suggesting is one new question on
the existing form. We wouldn't be asking them to do any work except to
click on "yes" or "no" in response to a short question.

>The ILL process in your version becomes much much more of an
>interrogation/negotiation before the actual delivery of the item to
>the requestor. I doubt many ILL's are staffed for such interrogative
>exchanges.

It doesn't become any kind of interrogation or negotiation at all. Again:
the form would ask the requestor whether a Green version is acceptable
(and would explain, in one sentence, why we're asking the question). If
the requestor clicks on "yes," then we look for a Green version. If the
requestor answers "no," then we don't. No interrogation, no negotiation,
no back-and-forth.

Actually, we already do something similar with book purchase requests. For
a long time, we treated all patron book requests as rush orders, on the
assumption that if a patron was requesting the book it was probably needed
urgently. But eventually we realized that while some requests really are
urgent, others are submitted in the spirit of "I think the library ought
to have this book in the collection." The extra money we were spending on
expedited delivery of those books was being wasted. So we added a simple
question to the request form: "Is this a rush request?". If the patron
clicks "yes," we rush it. If the patron clicks "no," we don't. No muss, no
fuss -- and the result is a cost savings with no sacrifice of service
quality.

>I can't imagine any user agreeing to the proposition you state:
>".. Accepting an OA version of this article will help us keep more
>funds in reserve for journal subscriptions." (There's your BI, scalable
>and provided in real time.)"
>
>Or in simple parlance, I think the answer is not my problem!

Unless the user cares about the library's ability to say yes when they ask
for a new journal subscription later on. In my experience, faculty
actually do care about that, and they're painfully aware of our limited
ability to say yes to those requests. And if they don't care, they can
feel free to click "no" and ask for the version of record. Again: there's
no argument, no interrogation, and no extra work for the patron beyond
clicking on "no."

>"This all points up one of the very nice things about journal
>cancellation:  it's eminently reversible."
>
>My apologies to everyone, Rick included, but  I find this response
>hilarious.

Sorry, I don't get the joke. Do you find the subscription process
challenging, Chuck? In my library we do it regularly (though not as often
as we'd like), and we don't find it any harder to subscribe to a journal
that was canceled in the past than it is to subscribe to a new one we've
never had. (Fiscally it may be difficult, of course, but renewals are
fiscally challenging too.)

Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections
Marriott Library, University of Utah
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