Document Delivery
- Chris Lee
Many libraries scan articles or book chapters for their own patrons and deliver them digitally through a service traditionally known as Document Delivery. In previous systems this service was a separate area of Resource Sharing to go along with Borrowing and Lending, but in Rapido the requests live simultaneously in Borrowing and Lending, but are processed using the Lending workflows.
Workflow
If your library offers a Document Delivery service your patron can request a scan of an article or book chapter from materials available in the library. From the patron’s perspective this is no different from requesting a scan from another library. They simply request a digital copy of the article or chapter:
Things work a little bit differently on the staff side of Rapido. When the patron places the request, Rapido creates a borrowing request just like it would if the item was not held by the library. Since the library owns the material, Rapido requests the article or book chapter from your library before sending it to RapidILL. This means the request is duplicated on the Lending side of Rapido with an Alma External Identifier. The Borrowing request will show your own library as the partner and the request status will change to Request Sent To Partner. This all should happen automatically and almost instantaneously when the patron places the request.
On the Lending side of Rapido the request will appear nearly identical to requests from other libraries. It will appear in the recommended printing and processing sets, so the Lending staff do not need to do anything different to process the request. It can be pulled, scanned, and delivered using the current Lending sets and workflows. The only indication that this is a Document Delivery item will be that the External ID is an Alma External ID instead of a RapidILL number and the Borrowing library will be your own library.
If the item is available it can be scanned/downloaded and delivered along with all the other Lending requests. The request will be delivered to the Borrowing side of your Rapido and delivered directly to the patron as if it came from another library. Both the Lending and Borrowing versions of the request will then automatically move to a completed status.
If the item is not available to lend you can reject it on the Lending side, just like you would with any Lending item. When the item is rejected in Lending, the Lending version of the request will be move to the Rejected The Borrower Request status. The Borrowing version of the request will send the request to RapidILL to get a new potential Lending library and a RapidILL number. This is done automatically without staff mediation.
Borrowing Mediation Rule
To activate Document Delivery you will need the following Borrowing Mediation Rule added:
Input Parameters | ||
|---|---|---|
Name | Operator | Value |
| = | True |
| Not in List | Approved |
Output Parameters | |
|---|---|
Labels | Action |
Owned | Fill Locally |
To add a mediation rule go to Alma Configuration → Resource Sharing → Rapido Rules → Borrowing Mediation Rules. Once in the Borrowing Mediation Rules List click + Add Rule to add a new rule.