6 Information Services

• 6.1 Lending and Reference Services
• 6.2 MONINFO
• 6.3 Document Delivery Services

The major challenge in 1996 has been the delivery of a cost-effective information service in the face of rapid developments in information technology on the one hand and limited financial resources on the other.

The Information Resources and Services Committee (IRSC) held eleven meetings during the year to deliberate on information services issues. Management of the explosion in electronic information sources proved to be the biggest challenge, in particular access to information sources through the Library's CD-ROM network, the OVID database system, and access to NEXIS and Reuters full-text databases. Delivery of information service was made more complex by the requirement to provide access for a diverse range of clients located across campuses and remote sites.

To the IRSC subcommittee structure of Lending Services, User Education/Reference, Online/ondisc, and Document Delivery was added the Multimedia Advisory Subcommittee in October. IRSC has proven to be an extremely busy committee since its establishment in February 1989 and credit should be given to the convenors of the subcommittees and all the IRSC committee members for their invaluable contributions over the past eight years. From 1997, with the proposed streamlined committee structure, IRSC functions will be incorporated into the new Committee of Divisional Librarians (CODIL).

6.1 Lending and Reference Services

Overall, loans increased by 4.27%, from 1,589,515 in 1995 to 1,659,433 in 1996, particularly at the Alfred Hospital, and Caulfield/Peninsula. One reason for the increase in loans has been the decision by branches such as Caulfield/Peninsula to reduce the loan period for high demand books, resulting in a greater turnover of these materials. Teaching across all campuses is becoming more prevalent and hence students are moving across campuses and using the services of more than one branch.

There has been an increase in reference enquiries in 1996 of 3.9%. The number of directional enquiries decreased by 12%. The use of touch screen guidance systems and the development of Branch homepages on the Internet appears to have reduced the number of users requiring basic assistance.

MULTELS has proven to be a cost-effective way to handle general reference telephone enquiries across Branches, especially now that it services all campuses. The Library is planning to incorporate the University's Interactive Voice Response (IVR) facility into MULTELS in 1997.

The various Branch Libraries ran an extensive user education program, including training in using the library system and various online databases more effectively. User education programs now refer to and use Branch Library Homepages as part of their programs.

6.2 MONINFO

MONINFO continued to maintain a healthy level of operations in 1996 with a 5% increase over the previous year's volume of work. Although there has been a substantial drop in fee-paying borrowers and courses, this was compensated for by increased income from consultancy and document delivery services. A new price structure was implemented from 1 June 1996, the first price increase since the establishment of MONINFO in 1990.

6.3 Document Delivery Services

Electronic document delivery system.
The new streamlined service has been able to reduce turnaround time of normal transactions from up to two months to less than ten days for interlibrary loans requests, and less than three days for intercampus loans for at least 90% of transactions. This has resulted in a dramatic increase since 1995 in the number of interlibrary loan transactions. The number of interlibrary loans supplied to Monash University clients increased by 62% and intercampus loans by 45%.

There was, however, only a slight increase in the number of items supplied to other libraries (see Figure 3).

Task Force.
A working group was set up to develop a cost recovery model for 1997. The major challenge in implementing the electronic document delivery system within the context of the complex Monash environment had been the lack of adequate financial information.

MEADS (Monash Electronic Access and Delivery for Serials).
The Hargrave Library, in collaboration with the Document Delivery Service, embarked on a six month trial of direct client access to electronic ordering and journal article delivery for eligible primary clientele. Over the trial period, the MEADS model will be evaluated in terms of its efficiency, cost-effectiveness and user satisfaction. The trial is designed to assist with developing policy and procedures for an extended MEADS service, as part of the Monash Virtual Library Service.