As an interlibrary loan user here at The University of Alabama, I can attest to how well the service works. \u00a0But while our interlibrary loan service works very quickly and with a minimum of hassle, some elements of the website design and functionality have been in need of an update. \u00a0We\u2019ve begun the process of working with Cornelia Davis and Interlibrary Loan staff to implement those updates here in the last month.<\/p>\n
Our first step toward improving The University of Alabama Interlibrary Loan web presence was to make the emails users received clearer. \u00a0Information from a table in ILLiad (the software we use to handle interlibrary loan requests) that stores the interlibrary loan URL and email address wasn\u2019t actually making its way into the email new users got when they registered. \u00a0Along similar lines, the method by which users would be notified of status changes in their interlibrary loan requests wasn\u2019t appearing in the registration email, either. \u00a0Some of the language users encountered in the registration email was also a little user-unfriendly — for instance, \u201cThank you for logging into illserver\u201d was the first line of the email. \u00a0Using interlibrary loan for the first time can be an intimidating experience for anyone, and we hope that fixing these elements of the registration email will do a little bit to help convince patrons that interlibrary loan isn\u2019t something to be intimidated by.<\/p>\n
Our larger project is to redesign the ILLiad site to closely resemble the new library website. \u00a0Navigating through different library silos — the catalog, our discovery layer Scout, the databases page, our library guides, and ILLiad — can make the process of using the library website disorienting, and we hope that bringing the ILLiad design closer to the library website design will make both ILLiad use and library website use more user-friendly. \u00a0Even small things, like adding University of Alabama branding more prominently to the ILLiad page, will hopefully help to reassure users that they are, indeed, in the right place when they first access our ILLiad site.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll make sure to share updates once the ILLiad redesign\u2019s far along enough to be ready for feedback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As an interlibrary loan user here at The University of Alabama, I can attest to how well the service works. \u00a0But while our interlibrary loan service works very quickly and with a minimum of hassle, some elements of the website design and functionality have been in need of an update. \u00a0We\u2019ve begun the process of … Continue reading Improving the Interlibrary Loan Web Presence<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":489,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apps.lib.ua.edu\/blogs\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apps.lib.ua.edu\/blogs\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apps.lib.ua.edu\/blogs\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apps.lib.ua.edu\/blogs\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/489"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apps.lib.ua.edu\/blogs\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apps.lib.ua.edu\/blogs\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89,"href":"https:\/\/apps.lib.ua.edu\/blogs\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/89"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apps.lib.ua.edu\/blogs\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apps.lib.ua.edu\/blogs\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apps.lib.ua.edu\/blogs\/webservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}