What did you wish your predecessor had told you?

Sara Juel

July 23, 2021 14:05

Hello ILLiad Community,

We're putting together a new getting started with ILLiad article for well-established ILLiad sites. The goal of the article is to help provide a list of resources you can share with future colleagues that join your team. The article will help new staff members locate ILLiad resources (events, documentation, etc.) and gain a basic understanding of where to find information on any custom workflows/configurations your site may have.

Here are some of the topics we've come up with so far:

Conferences to attend
Where the ILLiad docs are located: support.atlas-sys.com
Where to sign-up for ILLiad events: atlas-sys.eventbrite.com
Make sure they know how to login to Customization Manager, Staff Manager
Any special customizations in place for workflows, routing, web, authentication
Who to contact for support for ILLiad/OCLC/other systems you use for resource sharing
How to interact with the ILLiad/Resource Sharing community: https://support.atlas-sys.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4403427034515-Staying-Connected-in-the-ILLiad-Community-Updates-training-opportunities-connecting-with-other-ILLers
Atlas Concierge Services are available when needed: https://www.atlas-sys.com/concierge-services

Do you have any other resources or topic suggestions? Feel free to comment below or message me directly. I'd love to hear what you are doing when training new staff!

Thanks,
Sara Juel, MBA
Access Services Product Manager
Atlas Systems - Library excellence through efficiency
Phone: 757-439-0208
sjuel@atlas-sys.com
http://www.atlas-sys.com/
“Training from anywhere…Enroll in an online training course from home or office.”

Comments

2 comments

Mike Paxton
July 29, 2021 14:50
I always have questions about how the ILL dept. fits into that library's workflows (I call these "where do we keep the napkins?" questions, from when I worked at Starbucks and would pick up shifts at another store, and knew how to make the coffee but not what was stored in which cabinets). Things like
- If we have to pay an invoice, how does that work? Is it different for lost-item invoices vs software vs memberships/services?
- If we have to send an invoice, how does that work?
- How does ILL interact with campus mail? What couriers do we use?
- What stats do I need to report, to whom, and how frequently? For consistency, what reports are these based on?
- What are our data retention/data cleanup policies?
1

Comment actions Permalink
Alison Mortensen-Hayes
July 29, 2021 15:40
I agree with much of what's already been stated by Atlas and Mike. I too had plenty of questions on the very basics of it all, as well as questions on our library-specific procedures (especially when something out of the routine happened). Additionally, I could have used information on:
- Copyright & licensing. When I was brand new to ILL, I barely knew what ILL was! I was a complete newbie to libraries and was just figuring out how libraries really work internally. Then when I was rapidly put in the ILL supervisor’s seat, I realized I had to play quick catch-up to understanding the basics of copyright law (Section 107/108) and generally accepted ILL practices in terms of copyright. I also had to fine tune our Lending workflows to make sure we were checking and honoring any licenses that prohibit ILL (which was thankfully a very small amount).
- Overview of billing systems (we use IFM, EFTS, invoice) and which ILL systems those tie into, as well as other financial arrangements at our institution that feed into ILL (e.g. the budget)
- Overview of all the different queues in ILLiad, what they mean and what actions to take. Would have been useful to see in a grid or list type format
0

Comment actions Permalink

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Didn't find what you were looking for?

New post