Academic Libraries: Great Western Library Alliance Launches BorrowItNow System

From the GWLA Blog:

Today, the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) is excited to launch BorrowItNow, a consortial borrowing system based on the Relais International D2D product. BorrowItNow allows patrons to discover library materials via a virtual union catalog, which spans across all participating members’ ILS systems. BorrowItNow provides for unmediated requests, transmitting real time availability and call numbers to the lending library, while balancing request loads across the consortium.
Joni Blake, Executive Director of GWLA, said, “Resource sharing is GWLA’s oldest program, and one our members value greatly. This project is in keeping with GWLA’s core values of leveraging our collective strength and improving services through innovation and experimentation. We are very excited about the enhanced access to collections and faster service that the Relais D2D platform will bring to the patrons at our member libraries.”
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Naomi Chow, Chair of the GWLA Resource Sharing/Document Delivery Committee, is thrilled with members’ adoption of the system. “The response from the libraries within our consortia has been very enthusiastic — over 90% of our partner libraries will be participating in the pilot project during its first year! This is in part due to great support for the project from the GWLA Board of Directors. Our libraries are eager to offer our patrons a streamlined and efficient method of unmediated ILL requests. We look forward to working with Relais during our threeyear pilot, and hope that GWLA’s project, with its size and geographic complexity, will contribute to further innovative system enhancements of value to the library community at
large.”

Libraries Participating in the Pilot

Institutions participating in the three-year pilot:

• Arizona State University
• Baylor University
• Brigham Young University
• Colorado State University
• Iowa State University
• Kansas State University
• Oklahoma State University
• Oregon State University
• Southern Illinois University,Carbondale
• Southern Methodist University
• Texas A&M University
• Texas Tech University
• University of Arizona
• University of Arkansas
• University of Colorado
• University of Hawai’i at Mānoa
• University of Houston
• University of Illinois-Chicago
• University of Kansas
• University of Missouri-Columbia
• University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• University of New Mexico
• University of Oklahoma
• University of Oregon
• University of Southern California
• University of Texas
• University of Utah
• University of Wyoming
• Utah State University
• Washington State University
• Washington University in St. Louis

Read the Complete Announcement

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