***APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTING AND LENGTH OF EMAIL***
Thanks to all who responded to my question last week regarding home
delivery of library materials to students during campus closures. I
received 10 responses from public and private universities in a wide range
of geographic locations and sizes. Here is what they are doing:
Labor: Generally handled by Access Services staff, especially those
designated as essential employees early on. Some will have work/study
students helping in the fall or currently have student workers. The
activities were often merged with duties of ILL positions and staff who
pivoted to curbside pickup as well as library mailroom staff.
Workflow: Requests typically begin with the ILL form or a modified ILL
form. Some have set up a separate form linked within a hold notice.
Several first look for ebook versions, then turn to their physical copies.
Staff (or in a few cases, student workers) pull the material, print labels,
and either ship themselves or use preexisting campus mail procedures.
Turnaround time is not usually guaranteed, though some respondents have
fixed shipping days (“request by Wednesday, ship on Thursday”). One
respondent ships from Amazon directly to the student if the material is not
already held by the library.
Shipping: UPS or USPS, with some responses indicating consortial
partnerships for shipping or programs like UPS CampusShip. Most
respondents include return labels, but only a few include prepaid return
labels. One respondent adds the tracking number to the patron record in a
note field.
Limits on Materials Shipped: This varied widely by institution (and I
didn’t see a pattern!). Respondents may require: limit on number of items
shipped per patron; limit on shipment of multi-volume sets; some don’t
ship media; limit checkout time for some materials (like reference titles).
Absorbing Costs: Some respondents already had a delivery program in place.
Others are moving funds as needed from elsewhere in the library budget, as
well as using contingency funds. One noted a local delivery cost of $13.00
per item/$20.00 for multiple items (UPS). Others noted that it may be
cheaper than ordering an ebook copy.
Biggest Challenges: #1 Making sure you have the correct delivery address
(harder than it sounds!). #2 Finding the material in the library
(especially new items that may not yet have been processed, etc.).
Thank you to all respondents! My university announced yesterday that we
will begin with remote instruction for Fall Semester 2020 due to the
increase of virus cases in California, so your responses were particularly
timely. I wish the best for all of you as we tackle this challenging
academic year.
*Laura Turner*
*Head of Collections, Access, and Discovery*
Helen K. and James S. Copley Library / University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110-2492
Phone: (619) 260-2365 | lauraturner_at_sandiego.edu
Received on Thu Jul 30 2020 - 12:59:36 EDT