Susan Hendrickson and I attended the NC ILL Conference in
Asheville on July 25, 2014. Usually the conference is held at one meeting
place in central NC. To reduce travel, this year something new was tried…2
simultaneous sessions were held at UNC Wilmington and at the Western Carolina
University facility at Biltmore Park, Asheville. Sessions were webcast
between the 2 locations. Thirty to
thirty-five people were in attendance at each location. The sessions went well, and at the end, our
group concurred that the 2 location format worked well.
Sessions focused on best practices in communication,
packaging and shipping, scanning, and managing overdue loans. Genie Powell, Chief Customer Officer of Atlas
Systems, Inc., our ILLiad Resource Sharing Management software provider,
provided an ILLiad update. She discussed
the current availability of software version 8.5 with an update expected in
late 2014. We are currently on version
8.4 and can wait for the update before upgrading or wait for version 8.6 which will
be available in May 2015. Once 8.6 is available,
8.4 will no longer be supported.
Version 8.5 adds a new In Transit status which allows
libraries to place received loans in this status until they reach the pickup
location, then mark them received which sends the borrower the pickup
notification. Presently, pickup
notifications are sent before they actually reach the hold shelf. It also allows staff to place virtual post it
notes on records and for staff and patrons to clone requests for repeated and
multiple volume loans.
It was a lovely day in Asheville, and Biltmore Park was a
great location for this conference. It
was great to talk with other ILL’ers who have great ideas to share and who
appreciate the service of our ILL operation!
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