Improvise the interlibrary loan system: development of interlibrary loan online system (iNTeLS)

Interlibrary loan is the process whereby one library obtains from another specified library material requested by its users and not available from its collections. The requested material may be sent as a temporary loan, or a substitute copy may be supplied instead (IFLA, 2000). In principle, it is merely a means through which a library may broaden its lending service to include materials made available by other libraries (Reynolds, M, 1984). The interlibrary loan is governed by the National Library of Malaysia (PNM) following the IFLA Model National Interlibrary Loan Code (Revised 2000) and IFLA International Resource Sharing and Document Delivery: Principles and Guidelines for Procedure (Revised 2009) to aid libraries in fulfilling the area of research, teaching and learning needs and to reduce the boundaries of knowledge in the community (IFLA, 2000). The interlibrary loan online system (iNTeLS) aims to develop an interlending processing module in Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) library. This library innovation project radically changes the interlibrary loan (ILL) business transition and meets the current user’s expectations. The mission of iNTeLS is to transform the conventional process flow to an online transition through a technology conversation system in our library portal. It provides a request management framework that applies to our client charter and signifies the transparency of the process flow. iNTeLS continually evaluates the interlending strategies that will optimize users’ mutual access to resources initially from the time the user places a request until the time the user is notified for pickup or ready to be retrieved from the librarian. To date, the statistics have shown that 193 active members, including academicians and students, have utilised iNTeLS and a total of 198 requests for both books and articles from around the world. The customer satisfaction index (CSI) has shown 96% satisfactory results indicating iNTeLS has generated minimal time processing requests and an increase in the efficiency of workflows in general. iNTeLS is committed to enhancing the user experience for the entire resource-sharing community by improving turnaround times. Apart from that, it also serves to increase our university’s visibility and accessibility to our information and resources for teaching, learning and research domain to the world.