Silvana Mangiaracina

NILDE: developing a new generation tool for document delivery in Italy

Purpose – This paper presents the most recent progress and implementation of the Network Inter‐Library Document Exchange (NILDE) system, a web based document delivery (DD) software for libraries and end‐users. NILDE allows libraries to manage the entire workflow of DD activities, both borrowing and lending, through the provision of synthetic and analytical statistics, DD performance indicators such as “fill‐rate” and “turn‐around time”, and support for secure electronic delivery. New technologies, referred to as Web 2.0, have been incorporated into NILDE, making it an even more user‐oriented and friendly tool for document delivery and scholar work.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents the key factors that have made NILDE a successful tool and a “de facto” standard for document delivery among Italian libraries: the policies, i.e. the rules the community has imposed on itself, and the processes, i.e. the procedures through which the libraries provide DD services using NILDE.Findings – The rise in...

Assessing the effectiveness of a national resource sharing system

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on the surveys, carried out during 2011 and 2013, regarding the functionality of and possible improvements to Italy’s nationwide resource sharing service NILDE (Network for Inter-Library Document Exchange). Design/methodology/approach – The methodology comprises both an analysis of quantitative data about ILL transactions initiated during a 2011 study and a qualitative assessment of the system based on information obtained from the surveys and a SWOT analysis. This proved to be an effective methodology, and a new survey was launched in 2013 to verify whether the choices made and the projects undertaken were in line with user expectations. Findings – The results turned out to be particularly interesting and a source of hints for planning future improvements. Originality/value – Italian studies for assessing user satisfaction of library services, based on user surveys, often relate to a single library or a single University. The NILDE survey was delivered nat...

NILDE reloaded: a new system open to international interlibrary loan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present new concepts and features introduced in NILDE 4.0, an online ILL and document supply request system designed for and used by more than 700 Italian libraries and research institutions. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use a case study approach based on their professional experience at the NILDE Administrator library, the CNR Research Area Library of Bologna. Findings – New concepts and features include, among others, a multilingual user interface, a Z39.50 link to national catalogues and union catalogues, a ranking algorithm to assist libraries in balancing their ILL borrowing and lending volumes with partner libraries, a single sign-on user authentication and authorisation system, and a bibliographic citation management system. Future development plans include the ability to create library groups; although this functionality is already built into the new system architecture, it has not yet been implemented by the community. Originality/value – The...

Experience in implementing a document delivery service

In this paper we propose an integration between electronic mail and web services for people such as library operators who need to send large files to Internet users. The proposed solution permits libraries to continue using the e-mail service to send large documents, but at the same time overcomes problems that users can encounter downloading large size files with e-mail agents. The library operator sends the document as an attachment to the destination address, on fly the e-mail server extracts and saves the attachments in a web-server disk file and substitutes them with a new messsage part that includes the URL pointing to the saved document. The reciever can download these large objects using a user-friendly browser.

To each his own: how to provide a library user with an article respecting licence agreements

Purpose – This paper aims to describe the state of the art of the Italian Archivio Licenze Periodici Elettronici (ALPE) project which aims to improve the understanding of the issues raised by licence agreements of electronic resources in the Inter-Library Loan Service and to support librarians in the implementation of the right policies. Design/methodology/approach – ALPE – (E-Journals Licenses Archive) is a national archive of interlibrary loan (ILL) clauses, extracted from standard and negotiated licences, to manage, to publicly share and to check the permitted uses of e-resources for ILL and document delivery. Findings – The ALPE archive facilitates public and free access to a remarkable amount of information and data about ILL conditions granted by the most important commercial and academic publishers, and responds to the practical problems of managing and understanding ILL clauses in e-licences. Originality/value – The solutions adopted by ALPE effectively solve many of the problems reported in the l...

Bibliometric S&T indicators to comply with users' needs

Homogeneous and easy to update scientometric indicators for a wide spectrum of problems were obtained by making use of the bibliographic database Current Contents. The procedures adopted and the major factors which can affect the accuracy of the results are reported and discussed. Case studies are presented concerning: international co-operation, foreign policy, and vocation for industrial settlements, all of which provide examples of how these indicators can comply with a variety of needs. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

OWL-Cat: A Web-Based OPAC Appealing End-Users to Exploit Library Resources

Databases have always been the most appropriate tool to catalogue library items, but their most important feature, to instantly retrieve sets of data which satisfy search criteria, has often represented an awkward task to be accomplished, depending on the different kinds of query languages, which vary with hardware and software architecture. WWW browsers and the development of the Internet have offered Information specialists a unique opportunity both to facilitate end-users in the search and retrieval process and to remove barriers which have always separated local from remote resources.