The Ex Libris interlibrary loan platform plays a key role in next-generation discovery-to-delivery for leading university libraries.
Judith Fraenkel, Director of Product Management
Rapido is a new product to the market, our team has been working on it for nearly 2 years already with the collaboration of our development partners and early adopters who have helped us shape a solution that suits their needs. I feel personally lucky and grateful to our Rapido partners for their input and feedback throughout this process. The collaboration and community spirit has shone so brightly.
As a Product Manager, it is always exciting to see a product being born, in production and then live after many months of work. In June, we held our very first Webinar together with customers from our growing community. Together we had the opportunity to discuss the great strides forward we are taking to support the future of resource sharing and the strategic role that interlibrary loan is playing today – with over 300 participants. What a great achievement!
‘Putting the patron experience up front’
Panelists in the webinar, which took place on 21st June 2021, addressed those issues and more, noting the key role Rapido plays in enhancing their efforts to serve patrons. This patron-centered approach is also reflected in the vision of next-generation discovery-to-delivery as expressed by the Big Ten schools.
Mark Paris, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources and Discovery at Brandeis University, characterized as providing “more of an Amazon-like experience,” which patrons have come to expect in all areas of their lives.
Dan Taylor, Library Systems Specialist at Ithaca College, said that students are their “why,” adding “that’s what Rapido does – it puts the patron experience up front.”
Curran Riley, Shared Systems Manager at University of Wisconsin-Madison said: “Rapido is a concrete implementation of the Big Ten vision, making it easy for patrons to quickly search and find what they need.”
The panelists cited several ways in which Rapido meets their vision for resource sharing:
- The library is able to acquire, access and provide materials very quickly.
- More resources are available via interlibrary loan, making knowledge available for more researchers and users.
- The process is clear and simple, taking place in a familiar online environment (Primo or any other discovery interface).
- The patron knows up front the resource format, time to delivery, loan duration, cost (where relevant), and more, so they can make informed decisions.
- Patrons have unprecedented visibility into their requests, which they can track from their institution to a partnered lending library and back, with automated updates on when the requested resource is available for pick up.
- All patron requests and access to shared resources are centralized, simplifying library services.
