Jerusalem, Israel — August 30, 2021
To meet high patron demand, Bond University adopted Rapido resource sharing as an expansion of the university’s RapidILL implementation
Jerusalem, Israel—August 30, 2021. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is pleased to announce that Bond University, in Queensland, Australia, has gone live with the Ex Libris Rapido™ resource sharing platform. The university decided to adopt the Rapido platform to handle an increased demand for interlibrary loans (ILLs) while lowering costs. The free Rapido reciprocal lending model provides significant savings for libraries, like Bond’s, that had previously been using a “pay-per-loan” system for both print and document delivery.
The library found that ILL costs were going up because Primo searches enabled students to locate and request resources beyond the locally held collections. With both loan fees and postage costs increasing, the librarians at Bond looked for a better solution, one that would allow them to handle the increased ILL traffic without going over budget. This issue was particularly important when the COVID-19 pandemic set in, because some students were studying remotely and couldn’t access the library’s physical collections.
Bond University was already using the Ex Libris Alma® library services platform, Primo® discovery tool, and RapidILL™ interlibrary loan system before buying Rapido. With Rapido deployed on the Ex Libris higher-ed cloud platform, all these systems are working together seamlessly.
The seamless Rapido integration within the Primo interface lets users make more informed decisions about what they request; for example, they can see how long a resource will take to be delivered and how long they can keep a physical book.
Bond University Librarian Sarah Fredline said, “The seamless Rapido integration within the Primo interface lets users make more informed decisions about what they request; for example, they can see how long a resource will take to be delivered and how long they can keep a physical book. They can also weigh the benefits of receiving a chapter quickly or waiting longer to receive the whole book. The look and feel of the Primo interface has brought more undergraduates on board. It’s quite visual and simple for users, enabling them to easily find their way to Rapido and to request more types of resources than in the past.”
“The implementation was pretty straightforward and seamless,” Fredline continued. “There weren’t really any hurdles at all. We started to engage with the early adopter community in February, 2021; we began the implementation in May; and we were live by July.”
Digital Library Services Manager Peta Hopkins explained the added value of the Rapido system: “We have now minimized the amount of time we spend mediating borrowing requests, which are more numerous than we had with RapidILL alone. More requests are coming through with accurate metadata, so we are more confident about letting our users submit a request that is sent immediately to the lending library.
“The advanced mediation rules and labels enable us to focus on the requests that need our attention, rather than on all requests. Our students and researchers now have clear expectations when they place their requests for physical loans from other libraries. Because there are no transaction costs per request, actively encouraging our community to request the items they need is less likely to overstretch our resource sharing budget.”
“In addition,” said Hopkins, “being able to connect with development partners and other early adopters both internationally and within our own region has been essential in helping us understand the challenges faced by our resource sharing partners and learn how they operate.”
Sharona Sagi, Ex Libris vice president of resource sharing, noted, “Working with Bond as a Rapido early adopter was a great experience. It was really amazing to watch a RapidILL customer go smoothly into a full Rapido implementation. We are happy to see our Australian group of customers go live and benefit from the platform we have been working to develop together.”
About Bond University
As the country’s first private not-for-profit university, Bond University has changed the face of tertiary education in Australia. Modelled on the traditions of the world’s leading educational institutions, it was built around the ideal of providing a personalized learning experience where students work in small classes, mentored by leading experts in their respective fields. Bond consistently ranks as one of Australia’s leading universities in independent reviews such as the Good Universities Guide. Its law school is rated one of the best in Australia. The Bond MBA is ranked in the country’s top five, and its Executive MBA program, in the top three. For more information on Bond, visit www.bond.edu.au.
About Ex Libris
Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is a leading global provider of cloud-based SaaS solutions that enable institutions and their individual users to create, manage, and share knowledge. In close collaboration with its customers and the broader community, Ex Libris develops innovative solutions that increase library productivity, maximize the impact of research activities, enhance teaching and learning, and drive student mobile engagement. Ex Libris serves over 7,500 customers in 90 countries. For more information, see our website and join us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
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