Hi colleagues

Here are the findings from the discussion about targeted services to researchers.  Although this is from the viewpoint of improving/targeting our own service offer, I hope some of you may find it useful.  Many thanks to those who responded:  American University of Beirut, University of Sheffield, University of Huddersfield, The Geological Society.

Promotion: 
It's a really good point (thanks to the Geological Society), and something I think we don't make enough of: ILL is really good value for students (researchers or otherwise), when compared with them making their own purchases or using BL On Demand themselves. It's worth reminding people of this from time to time.

ILL service charges:  
Ours are already free, and some colleagues also recommended this option, either for researchers, or for all users.  

ILL request limits: 
We have concurrent request caps (20 for researchers), rather than total usage limits. Colleagues also recommended removing limits, so to make our service even more premium, we could remove the concurrent request cap for researchers.

Purchase on Demand (i.e. one-off purchases in lieu of ILL): 
Where services offer this, a notable suggestion for a premium option was raising the upper limit on purchases for researchers (instead of 'in line with the BL loan charge'), or even removing the upper spending cap entirely. One colleague said spending more on some requests was balanced out by some requests being sourced for free (or very cheaply). It's a good point.

Premium delivery services for researchers (British Library options):  
One colleague noted there wasn't a discernible difference in speed of delivery, whether '4 days' was selected, or the more expensive options. When it comes to Amazon, I think the service chosen does make a bit of difference, but this is usually just a day or so. For researchers then, we could use 'next day delivery' on a case by case basis, depending on the 'requirement date'.

The keys to the kingdom: 
Huddersfield University raised the possibility of 'associating readers with their own British Library account', e.g. by department or research group. Sheffield has tried it, but warned that it can get very expensive, because it's difficult to monitor or control requests submitted directly to the British Library. 

Overseas requests: 
There was more than one recommendation for OCLC WorldShare as a back up to the British Library's services, so it's definitely something for us to look into as well. An offshoot of this is the LVIS (Libraries Very Interested in Sharing) consortium, recommended by my colleague in Beirut. I was glad to find out about both of these options, from the viewpoint that applying overseas might be considered a premium service, and therefore targeted to researchers.
Patron Driven Acquisitions:
It's something we've explored at BCU (although in Acquisitions rather than ILL), and another recommendation for this model of purchasing came from my colleague at Sheffield University (for ProQuest Library Central). 

All aboard the library bus:
Talking of Sheffield, how amazing is this - they run a mini bus service once a month for customers to visit the British Library (at Boston Spa). You can't get more premium than that! 


I hope you found this interesting :)

Best wishes

Kip Darling
Inter-Library Loans
Birmingham City University

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