How to Scan ALL THE THINGS:Scan and Deliver at Yale

Tom BrunoAssociate Director for Resource Sharing and Reserves

Yale University LibraryNWILL 2015 Conference

Introduction: The Perfect Storm

• When I came to Yale in 2012, there was a fortuitous alignment of factors which allowed for radical change

• Departmental reorganization, launch of document delivery service, need for new e-reserves platform

• How do we make this most of this historic opportunity?

Overview

• Phase One: Document Delivery• Phase Two: E-Reserves• Phase Three: “Special” Scanning Requests• Phase Four: Integration with RapidILL• Looking Ahead?

Phase One: Document Delivery• Launched September 4, 2012• Initial participating libraries

included Sterling Memorial Library, Center for Science and Social Science Information, Divinity Library, Medical Library, Yale Law Library

• Added Library Shelving Facility (off-site storage), Music Library, Geology and Math Libraries in October 2012; Microforms in December 2012; Arts Library and Bass Library in Summer 2013

• Over 10,000,000 eligible items

Venimus, scrutavimus, reddidimus

“We came, we scanned, we delivered!”

How it works• Patron clicks Request Scan

link in OPAC• Request passed from OPAC to

ILLiad via OpenURL• Scan and Deliver requests

filled within 2 business days (service guarantee)

• All faculty, students, and staff eligible, as well as alumni with paid borrowing privileges

• Up to 2 chapters/articles can be requested at a time

User Interface Example

Year One Statistics

• 19,074 “born” Scan and Deliver requests in Yale FY13 (July ‘12-July ‘13)

• 14,341 requests filled- 75% fill rate• Top reasons for unfilled requests include

Copyright/Terms of Service Exceeded, Not On Shelf, and Lack Volume (for periodicals)

• Patrons have option to resubmit Scan and Deliver requests via Interlibrary Loan

Constant Assessment= Perpetual Improvement

• At launch we embedded a Qualtrics link into the email delivery notification

• Commitment to keeping the link in permanently as ongoing assessment/continuous improvement

• Great rapid response for service, quality control issues, user-driven enhancement requests (e.g., direct links to PDF, OCR)

I CAN HAZ SATISFAKSHUN?

Phase Two: E-Reserves• In Spring 2013, Yale University

implemented Ares as its new course reserves management system

• Question: could we leverage Scan and Deliver to fulfill E-Reserves scanning requests?

• Utilized Ares OpenURL functionality to push E-Reserves scanning requests out to Scan and Deliver service

• When request was filled, Ares TN # embedded in the ILLiad request allowed for automatic upload back into Ares

Staff Interface Example

The good, the bad and the ugly• Success! Scan and Deliver

allowed us to process almost 2x the volume of E-Reserves in a fraction of the time using previous workflows

• 50% of all E-Reserves scanning complete by 1st day of classes; all scans complete by Week 4

• Almost all extra scan requests came during the first few weeks of the semester, when little/no reliable student help was available

Year Two Statistics

• 29,242 “born” Scan and Deliver requests in Yale FY14 (July ‘13-July’14)

• 20,301 requests filled- 70% fill rate• Addition of E-Reserves and eligible of high-

volume circulation collections in Bass Library lead to increases in requests exceeding Copyright Limits/Terms of Service and items Not on Shelf

Phase Three: Special Scanning• Yale’s Special Collections

dealing with more and more patron requests for “quick and dirty” scans thanks to greater online discoverability

• Digital Humanities faculty and librarians looking for cheaper, faster, non-vendor solution for “research digitization” projects

• Could Scan and Deliver take on these special scanning requests?

Putting The DH into the Digital Humanities

• Pilot for Research digitization projects

• Preservation scanning “punch work” request for Arcadia Grant scans

• Other “scan on demand” functions for other library departments- e.g., scanning old paper Privileges forms so the originals could be shredded

• GOAL: Utilize the latent capacity in student scanning hours during the semester

The Curse of the Mummy, and other qualified failures…

• Each project turned out to be a different kind of learning experience

• Importance of developing reliable request and fulfillment infrastructure for special scanning requests (so nothing is lost because it goes outside the normal workflow)

• We have the technological capacity to produce digital preservation-quality scans, but it requires much greater quality control- ideally built into the scanning process

• Yes, there was an actual Mummy’s curse… DISCLAIMER: This may or may not

have actually happened

Year Three Statistics

• 33,187 “born” Scan and Deliver requests in Yale FY15 (July ‘14-July’15)

• 27,573 requests filled- 83% fill rate• SML/Bass Scanning unit also completed 10

“special scanning” projects of varying size and complexity during unencumbered downtime

The Simpsons On Patron Expectations

Agnes: And you, start over. I want everything in one bag. Pimple Faced Kid: Yes, ma'am!

Agnes: But I don't want the bag to be heavy.

Pimple Faced Kid: I don't think that's possible!

Agnes: What are you, the possible police? Just do it!

Simpson Safari, Season 12 Episode 17 (Airdate: April 1, 2001)

Homer’s ILLiad

(Beware of Greeks bearing PDFs)

Band-Aids Don’t Fix Bullet Holes…

…or Rabbit Holes

Improving the Patron Experience

• Although our Fill Rate has steadily improved from year to year, our turnaround time has languished

• Not On Shelf items sometimes found on the 2nd or 3rd searches, but they can add days to fulfillment

• Getting it right, or getting it right now?

Phase Four: RapidILL

• Yale University Library is implementing RapidILL• Developed by Colorado State University in 1997 after a

disastrous flood, RapidILL allows libraries to send/receive articles and book chapters via a closed consortium

• Available lenders automatically identified, no manual searching necessary

• RapidILL will become the default “second search” for Scan and Deliver requests

• Reporting will allow us to identify students/staff with difficulty with retrieval accuracy, so we don’t push more into RapidILL than we should

• OUR GOAL= ~100% FILL RATE IN 2-3 DAYS

Where do we go from here?

• Formalizing the ability to push scanning requests from Special Collections to Scan and Deliver (and back again)

• ILLiad-Aeon interoperability• What do we do with all of

these scans? Questions about dark archives, normalizing metadata, and copyright

• Hoverboards???

Patron Feedback

“This service has been a god-send for me, since I had surgery over the summer and am only now getting back to norm movement and functioning. I thank you very much.” “I am so pleased with the speed of this service! I really appreciate all of your help! I am blown away by the ease of this!” “I can't imagine how this service could be any better. It saved me several hours of work, and gratification was almost immediate. This is what we would call in French a real ‘aubaine’

Questions? Comments? THANK YOU!