ILL in the faster lane: empowering users with HKALL

In an environment of reduced funding for higher education institutions, and consequently reduced funding for the libraries of those institutions, three of the eight university libraries in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China (HKSAR) embarked on an ambitious trial. With a main objective to achieve greater value for money and greater quality of service in the use of their libraries’ shrinking budgets, the libraries at the University of Hong Kong, the City University of Hong Kong, and Lingnan University sought to assess the impact of the introduction of a collaborative, user-initiated, unmediated, interlibrary loan service. Following a period of examination and discussion, INNOVATIVE’s INN-Reach module was chosen as the preferred system to be used during the trial which commenced in January, 2004. In this paper, the authors will explore the reasons behind conducting such a trial, the issues that confronted the collaborating partners before and during the trial, as well as an assessment of the degree of success of the project. In particular, following the trial period of nine months, the three university libraries sought answers to a number of important questions. Through a detailed analysis of available data, coupled with user and library staff evaluation obtained through surveys and focus groups, these questions were answered. In their paper the authors will outline the answers to these questions along with other lessons learned. The paper will conclude with a look to the future for collaborative, user-initiated, unmediated, interlibrary loan services in Hong Kong.