Request News: Evaluation of Consortial Borrowing System proposals

The deadline for responses to the RFP for a Consortial Borrowing System (CBS) was mid-November. As last reported in CDLINFO on November 8th, the CBS is an expansion of Request that would create a single workflow for requests, provide temporary tracking functions for materials while they are in the loan process, and support a wide range of administrative reports (Vol.3, No.16, see <http://www.cdlib.org/news/cdlinfo/cdlinfo110800.html#2>.  The CBS would replace the “fulfillment” of Requests now handled by OCLC, but would also hand off to OCLC and other sources those requests that cannot be filled within UC.  Members of the evaluation team will meet December 18th and 19th.  The evaluation is expected to be complete in February and, in the case of a successful bidder, implementation may start as early as spring. Evaluation team members are Tammy Dearie, Mary Heath, Michael Thwaites, Sherry Willhite, Marlayana Gates, Claire Bellanti, Gail Nichols, and Karen Butter.

Meanwhile, use of Request continues to grow steadily.  Use by undergraduates accounts for some, but not all growth.  Made available to them in September, undergraduate use has grown to 10% of the total use (comparable to the proportion of undergraduate use of traditional ILL), accounting for over 6244 of the 60,480 Requests placed in October and November (preliminary results; more complete statistics to be reported in 2001).