SirsiDynix: Resource-Sharing Solutions
Today's demanding library users are looking for a wide range of resources, many of which are not available in your own library. That's why your library partners with other libraries so that your institutions can support all of your users' needs.
This is where convenient self-service resource-sharing and interlibrary loan solutions from SirsiDynix are of strategic value to 21st-century libraries. Today's technology makes it easy for users to find the materials they want from a variety of local and remote resources. The result is more requests, which require more staff time and add more costs for libraries.
So how do libraries meet the growing demands for resource sharing among libraries, while facing the realities of tight budgets and short staffing. It's simple: SirsiDynix URSA 4.1 and SirsiDynix Reciprocal Borrowing Solution, along with Unicorn Collection Exchange.
URSA
Resources
Benefits of URSA 4.1:
- Enable users to place their own requests
- Authenticate using local library patron record data
- Place requests from a Web browser anytime, anywhere
- Search virtual catalogs using Z39.50
- View current status, cancel, and renew requests
- Request loan, copy, and non-print materials
- Register automatically at reciprocal borrowing partner libraries
SirsiDynix URSA (Universal Resource Sharing Application) extends Web-based requesting of interlibrary loan (ILL) resources with many enhancements and new features for users. Staff and users take advantage of URSA to place requests for a variety of local and remote materials, in a single, unified display. URSA also supports walk-in loan requests by enabling staff to authenticate visiting users and automatically create new records for them. URSA can be used by all types and sizes of libraries as a single, full-featured ILL solution or in combination with other interlibrary loan products, depending on the needs of the library. All displays are fully translatable to a variety of languages.
View the screenshots
As a technology leader and pioneer, SirsiDynix continues to deliver on its vision for supporting resource sharing. URSA 4 leverages today's standard-based technologies to provide seamless integration, centralized administration, simplified workflows, and increased performance. It includes the Z39.50 searching capabilities of SirsiDynix Horizon Information Portal, and the combination of these two next-generation products results in a powerful solution that is able to deliver additional functionality and a simplified user experience.
URSA provides benefits that no other resource sharing system offers.
Libraries can profile their own policies in the following ways:
- Configure requesting privileges by patron type
- Determine Z39.50 catalogs to search
- Profile preferred lending partners in groups and/or tiers
- Define a lender of last resort for unfillable requests
- Select events that trigger automatic email notices to patrons
- Choose pickup locations
- Change request status manually when exceptions occur
- Set up staff logins and define privileges and roles
- Intervene at any step of the automated workflow
- Authenticate visiting patrons and see current status at home library
For libraries committed to maximizing the value of their resources and to sharing them as proudly as possible, URSA is a powerful strategic solution.
Reciprocal Borrowing
Resources
View the screenshots
SirsiDynix Reciprocal Borrowing is a standalone resource-sharing solution, which allows libraries with reciprocal borrowing agreements to save staff time by automating a labor-intensive task. It works across multiple integrated library system platforms by means of the new NCIP standard. Reciprocal borrowing can function on the library's own server or via a hosted ASP solution from SirsiDynix.
Reciprocal Borrowing revolutionizes service for "walk-in" interlibrary loans by allowing your staff to authenticate "foreign" users at their home library and to automatically create a user record so that they can check out an item from your library. To do this, staff simply identify the user's home library from a list of reciprocal borrowing partners and scan in their barcodes. If the card is valid, basic user information is brought over and staff clicks to create a new record containing this data. A new barcode can be appended or not, depending on the library's processes. Whether the new user record is permanently retained or expires when the item is returned is also a local decision.
Why Reciprocal Borrowing?
- Authenticate based on their library's user file
- Obtain authorization based on user's privilege type at home library
- Automate user record creation at lending library
- Conduct statistical reporting on number of users authorized by library and type
- Gain convenient use of neighboring library resources
Neighboring and reciprocating libraries may use other vendors' circulation systems. In the past, lack of interoperability between systems encouraged libraries in a geographic area to select the same vendor. This is no longer necessary, thanks to the interoperability offered by NCIP. Reciprocal Borrowing employs this standard to authenticate and create users across a variety of circulation systems. SirsiDynix Horizon will have an NCIP extension available at the same time that Reciprocal Borrowing is released. Reciprocal Borrowing also uses functionality from the URSA Interlibrary Loan product to work with ILS platforms that don't yet support NCIP. Reciprocal Borrowing provides an easy way for libraries to satisfy both users and staff by capturing user information electronically, eliminating the need for manual entry of user information by staff.
Collection Exchange
Resources
Looking for a way to expand your collection without expanding your budget? Sharing resources is the most cost-effective way to continue to freshen the materials you can offer your users. The basic idea on which libraries themselves were founded – maximizing the usefulness of materials by circulating them – can be expanded further. Except in this case, whole collections of materials are loaned to a series of partner libraries, circulated, and eventually returned. The libraries involved conserve funds through reduced resource requirements, while users receive a better variety of materials.
Of course overseeing such a program, making sure materials are distributed fairly, and keeping track of where your library's resources are at any given time could mean many tedious hours for staff. And yet carefully tracking all the details is just what makes such a process successful.
That's why SirsiDynix developed Collection Exchange for the Unicorn® Library Management System. It lets you enjoy all the advantages of shared resources without the administrative chores that accompany it. Collection Exchange manages all the details, no matter how many libraries are involved or how complicated the arrangement your library chooses. Collection Exchange can help libraries of all types and sizes reach that elusive goal of offering more for less, by managing the rotation of collections among your group of libraries.
