Boston Library Consortium Launches NCIP ILL Service

The Boston Library Consortium (BLC), a cooperative association of 19 academic and research libraries, has launched what it is calling the first successful interlibrary loan (ILL) program using the NISO Z39.83 Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP). The ILL program allows users to generate ILL requests themselves, whether at the library or remotely. It works via the Dynix Universal Resource Sharing Application, which coordinates with whatever ILS system the library has in place.

The major benefit to automating the interlibrary loan process is cost savings. According to Dynix, manually processed interlibrary loans currently average nearly $30 per transaction, "most of which is attributed to staff hours." Applying NCIP to the circulation system, however, reduces costs by up to a whopping 75 percent, or less than $8 per transaction. "Similarly," the vendor said, "it takes an average of two weeks for a book to be delivered to its desired location. Under the direct consortia borrowing model, the vendor claims that time can be trimmed "to as little as two days."

The NCIP standard, which is sponsored by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), supports message exchange in circulation and interlibrary loan transactions, self-service applications, direct consortial borrowing, and electronic resource access. A longtime advocate for standards in library automation, Dynix has played a key role in the development, testing, and passage of the NCIP standard and with The Library Corporation in March 2002 conducted the first successful NCIP exchange between two automation vendors.

Dynix will continue to add NCIP support to its product lines, including the Horizon Information Management System and Horizon Interlibrary Loan, a new product scheduled for release in the second half of 2003.

Dynix also has formed a strategic partnership with Library Systems & Services Inc. (LSSI) to make that operation's Virtual Reference ToolKit available to Dynix customers. Dynix also said it intends to integrate the ToolKit fully into the Horizon Information Management System. Barbara Pitney, reference services coordinator at King County Library System, WA, has been using the LSSI reference tool since 2001. Pitney told LJ that offering online reference "opens up the library to a whole new clientele who might never have walked through our doors."

Pitney says the system at King County has received high usage: "From February 24 to March 30, we had 1,037 online reference contacts." Pitney reports that the service gets a lot of repeat use from patrons once they discover it. It also has been a boon to students for homework assignments; after-school hours see the heaviest use. But the library "is getting business during all our service hours," Pitney said.