Approved by CUWL, May 5, 2000

TO: CUWL

FROM: CUWL Resource Sharing Group

Ewa Barczyk – UW Milwaukee

Jean Gilbertson - UW Madison

Joe Jax – UW Stout

Paul Moriarty – UW Platteville

Bob Rose – UW Eau Claire

Kathy Schneider – WILS

RE: RESOURE SHARING POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS & PLANS

The CUWL Resource Sharing Group has completed its primary work. Our Report, including the "Resource Sharing Principles" approved by CUWL in April and a list of broad policy statements related to resource sharing is attached for CUWL approval. Following CUWL approval we recommend appointment of a new committee composed of Circulation and/or Public Service Managers to review the policies for the purpose of "making them work" within each campus. We also recommend that this committee develop recommendations to standardize the schedule and frequency of sending overdue notices and for invoicing for lost materials as well as attempt to establish a standard fee on lost items. Finally, our recommendation is that the Resource Sharing Committee reviews the entire document one-year after full implementation.

PLANNING ASSUMPTIONS

1. We should not be limited in our thinking by what we anticipate to be the reality of resource sharing functionality of Endeavor. We should aim for what we want and then later determine what is doable immediately and what will have to be delayed for future technological development.
2. It is likely to be two years before resource sharing within Voyager is fully operational. Policy decisions need to be made now but some procedure issues will not be completely resolvable at the present time.
3. We assume that funding will be available to support or at least subsidize physical delivery of materials in the near future but we cannot assume that additional funds will be provided to cover the expenses of expanded resource sharing.
4. We assume that all libraries will encourage and facilitate as much unmediated borrowing as possible within the Endeavor environment.
5. We assume, based upon the experience of other libraries implementing shared resources and unmediated borrowing, that our future will be one of significant increases in lending across the UW System.
6. Our goal is to eliminate fees for borrowing between UW System campuses. If we cannot achieve uniformity on the basis of "no fees," then uniformity may be achieved through standardizing fees across the System.
7. What happens to WILS is not an issue for this Committee. This Committee is about resource sharing within the UW System. While this clearly includes access to the Madison campus, which is currently provided through WILS, how such access is handled in the future is not our concern.

RESOURCE SHARING PRINCIPLES

1. The term Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery, which is a key component of resource sharing, denotes an exchange between two distinct and separate institutions. For UW libraries in the 21^st Century, the individual campus collections are "parts of the whole" of UW System resources. That is, the UW System Collection is dispersed across multiple geographic locations but constitute a single collection.
2. The UW System as a "single collection" presumes a vigorous effort at cooperative collection development. Systemwide licensing of electronic text is a proven method for assuring access by all System users including users in distance learning courses. Systemwide licensing should be continued and expanded through centrally managed funds expended through the established decision making process of the Collection Development Committee making selection decisions for CUWL approval.
3. The goal of UW System resource sharing is to assure equity of access and uniformity of policies and procedures to the greatest extent possible across the individual geographic locations including the greatly disbursed UW distant learner population.
4. Any type of library material needed for the purpose of study, instruction, information or research may be requested for delivery from one campus to another for use by any UW faculty, staff or student. Normally, special borrowers and guests do not have Systemwide (universal borrower) privileges.
5. The "any type of library material" referred to in #3 above includes "returnables" and "non-returnables" as well as audio-visual items. Over time the volume of "non-returnables" is likely to decline as availability of electronic full text increases; in the near term, however, libraries must be able to deliver both in response to user demands.
6. For purposes of speed and efficiency, users needs should be met with the closest available copy. If the item needed is not available within the immediate location of the user, then the "next available copy" should be provided regardless of its physical location and regardless of whether or not the user’s immediate library owns the item.

RESOURCE SHARING POLICIES

NOTE: Policies that cannot be fully implemented, due to technical limitations, until after installation of Universal Borrow are starred (*)

1. Loan Period:

(a) Shall be a minimum of 28 days (not including 2 days in transit) with a renewal option if the item is not on hold or recall.

(b) The Loan Period for materials that libraries have designated for "short term" loans (including audio-visual items) may be limited to 14 days. Campuses are encouraged to make full use of "media booking" to avoid potential conflicts with classroom use of videos.

(c) Reserve materials and other items that do not circulate locally are not expected to be available for resource sharing

2. "Loans To:"

1. * Material will be checked out directly to the User, not to the user’s library
2. Material will be held for pick-up by the remote borrower only for seven days after which it will be returned to the lending library. (NOTE: Within Universal Borrower the pick up site may be different from the user’s "home" campus)

1. * The owning library will send overdue notices directly to the user.
2. There will be no fines for "remote borrowers."
3. There will be no limits on the number of items circulating per user for "remote borrowers."

* Any user "blocked" by on his/her home campus is "blocked" on all campuses. No blocks will be placed on remote borrowers; a campus will only place a block on their own users that will then be honored by all campuses. (Limited blocks are possible currently through direct personal communication with the "home" library)

1. If an item being requested is not available in the home campus library, users will be directed to another UW-owned copy of the item.
2. If an item being requested is not available within the home campus library and there is no other copy within the UW libraries, the user will be directed to send message to home library staff. Staff will consider purchase of the item, if possible, or determine whether a recall or interlibrary loan request is appropriate.

When the owning library has exhausted the Overdue process and sends the user an invoice they will also send notification to the user’s home campus giving that campus an additional 28 days to locate the item. After that period the user’s home campus is obligated to pay to replace the lost material.

Users will have the capability of placing "holds" on items that are not currently available

1. Items borrowed may be returned to any UW campus.
2. * The campus receiving a returned item will record "in transit" status and ship the item back to the owning library. The individual user’s responsibility ends at this point. When an "in transit" does not get returned to the owning library, it is the owning library that must initiate follow-up action as needed. The cost of replacing materials determined to have been lost "in transit" will be covered by a central fund.
3. The owning library is urged to note the status of "lost" or "missing" materials in the catalog as soon as possible.

1. Frequency/ Turn-around-time

Each campus library commits to retrieving materials to fill requests in 24 hrs (returnables) and 48 hrs (non-returnables) at least five days per week. Weekend retrieval should be timed to meet the "next" delivery pick-up.

This turn-around-time means from the point the request is received by the lending library to the point when the material is ready to be picked up by delivery.

2. An item "held" by a remote borrower will not be circulated to a local borrower who finds the item on the shelf before library staff has retrieved it to fill the remote request. (Note that the local user will not know that the "hold" is for a remote user)

C. Collection/Content acquisition

1. Recommend that CUWL investigate options for expanding Electronic Reserve services on each campus through cooperative developments and possibly outsourcing across campuses.
2. Strongly encourage continuation of the Collection Development Committee in cooperatively choosing electronic content for UW libraries and in the near future expansion of this Committee’s work to include cooperation and coordination of acquisition of print materials as well.