A presentation about Harvard Library's Scan & Deliver service by Tom Bruno and Sarah Tudesco.

1. Creating the Service of Your Patrons’ Dreams
(a short history of Scan & Deliver)
Tom Bruno and Sarah Tudesco
Harvard College Library
6/8/12

2. The Simpsons On Patron Expectations
Agnes: And you, start over. I
want everything in one bag. Homer’s ILLiad
Pimple Faced Kid: Yes, ma'am!
Agnes: But I don't want the
bag to be heavy.
Pimple Faced Kid: I don't think
that's possible!
Agnes: What are you, the (Beware of Greeks bearing
possible police? Just do it! PDFs)
Simpson Safari, Season 12 Episode 17 (Airdate: April 1, 2001)

3. Guess What?
• WE ARE THE POSSIBLE
POLICE!
• Your job: figure out how to
Make It Happen without
breaking the law or your
budget
• User engagement +
data assessment +
continuous improvement =
making yourself
indispensable, therefore JP Porcaro, Patron Saint of Making It Happen
Awesome (LJ 2012 Mover & shaker)

4. Overview
• History of the service – Project Planning,
Launch, Growing Pains, Assessment, Future
• How is Scan & Deliver like Angry Birds?

5. Overview Part 2- Meet The Data
• Sarah Tudesco-
(Re)building the
reporting workflows
• Meeting stakeholder
data needs
• Prioritizing & Building
reports
• Presenting the data
Disclaimer: Sarah is not an android, but
she is a wizard

6. Scan & Deliver Basic Facts
• Launched April 22nd, 2009
• 9 “Hub” libraries + 6 additional
participating collections
• Dumbarton Oaks added in
2011, new collections TBA
• Open to current faculty,
students, and staff
• No charge- 2
request/patron/business day
• 4 business-day turnaround

7. Discovery

8. Request (1:35pm Wednesday)

9. Delivery (8:21pm Wednesday)

10. Timeline
65 million 1636 2008 2009 2010 2011 2015
years ago
Dinosaurs Harvard ULC authorizes Launch! 1st DDO Hoverboards
roam Earth Founded S&D service Assessment added
NOTE:
Time axis should be read
from left to right only,
unless you own a TARDIS
or a DeLorean

11. Origins
• Before, ILL units used OCLC
as mechanism for
requesting/fulfilling article
requests
• Cumbersome, negatively
impacted ILL operations,
patron confusion about
what items/collections were
eligible, what were not
• Short-lived scanning pilot at
HD proved too costly to
implement permanently

12. A New Mandate
• University Library Council authorized the formation
of an Electronic Document Delivery project in 2008
• Each school would be represented, ensuring 100%
coverage of eligible Harvard Library patrons
• Harvard Library’s first “shared service,” requiring
unprecedented coordination and cooperation across
previously independent entities (a.k.a. “tubs”)
• Before S&D, think of Harvard Libraries as a
consortium of 70+ libraries

13. Project Planning Phase
• All participating units would
SAVE A TREE adopt ILLiad for resource
sharing operations
• Existing ILLiad units (i.e.,
HMS, HVL, HLS) would be
merged into shared hosted
server
• New units would be
brought online at staggered
intervals of 1-2 weeks
SCAN A BOOK • Scan & Deliver links would
go live in OPAC on April 22,
2009 – Earth Day

14. Flies in the Ointment- #1
• In Fall 2008 many
universities lost significant
amounts on their
endowments, including
Harvard
• Questions arose about
wisdom of adding an
ambitious new library
service at this time “Brother, can you spare a billion?”
• Mandate was sent back to
ULC and was reaffirmed
unanimously

15. Flies in the Ointment- #2
• In February 2009 (less than
two months before
launch!), we realized our
workflow would not work as
proposed
• A staff-mediated
workaround was developed,
documented, and
communicated
• Lesson Learned: Make sure
your project has the right
combination of
stakeholders!

16. LAUNCH!
• First request received was
from the Biblioteca
Berenson in Florence, Italy
• Enabling remote access to
Harvard Library patrons
overseas has been a huge
selling point for the service
• One graduate student in
China was able to complete
her dissertation without
having to return to the
United States to access the
library collection

17. Growing Pains
• Every year has seen double-
digit growth in request
volume over previous year
• At HCL, request volume
exceeded capacity of our
resource sharing unit
• New cross-divisional
workflow established to
meet demand
• Service Level Agreement
defined each division’s
responsibilities and
expectations

18. User Assessment
• In Fall 2010 Scan & Deliver
conducted extensive user
assessment of service
• Short survey sent to all
recent users via an email
link
• Focus Groups asked patrons
from four select groups
(Faculty, Grad Students,
Undergrads, Staff) to share
impressions of service

19. Assessment Findings
• Scan & Deliver had quickly
been incorporated into
curriculum support role
• Service worked well with
“just in time” research
methods
• Patrons wanted more
microform eligibility, OCR-
ready PDFs
• Wide misunderstanding of
how copyright operated

20. Listening to the Patron #1
• Initially 2 request/patron/day was a “hard”
limit – 3rd+ requests were queued for
processing next day
• Managing this quickly became a nightmare
• Our solution: treat request limits as “Service
Minimums” – process them if there was
capacity
• Hypothetical abuse was impacting actual
service

21. Listening to the Patron #2
• Patrons were routinely asking for Tables of
Contents, Index, Bibliography, Accompanying
Images/Plates, and Title & Verso pages – no
standard form of entry
• Modified request forms so that these “menu
options” could be selected via checkboxes,
appear in unused CitedIn fields
• Less cut & paste for staff, more transparent
and reliable for patrons!

22. Have It Your Way

23. Listening to the Patron #3
• Resends often unwittingly reproduced original
error, leading to patron frustration
• New workflow where resend requests went to
different scanning unit, staff mediation if
needed – 24-hour turnaround on resends
• The Takeaway: If you’re going to adopt a high-
performance workflow, you need to adopt a
“high touch” troubleshooting workflow to
keep your patrons happy

24. The Dreaded “C”-Word
• When service was
launched, our OGC said to
use Section 108 guidelines
• Poor fit when scanning our
material for our own
patrons
• Closest analogy= Reserves,
but that’s for entire classes,
not individuals
• Using S&D scans for
curriculum support further
complicates this

25. Fair Use, Anyone?
• Bottom Line: We could
probably fill a lot more than
we currently do
• Huge potential benefit to
distance students, faculty
abroad, preservation of
originals
• Anyone want to get sued so
we know exactly how
much?
• Our solution: central
oversight removes burden
from local units

26. Assessment
• Per unit cost studies
suggested economies of
scale made service feasible
• Ongoing problems of cost at
smaller units and HD, where
labor primarily performed
by staff, not students
• Development of “success
Library Science Dog
metrics” to evaluate
services (Don’t Try This At Home!)

27. “We’re not doing it for the money…”

28. Your Mind. Blown.
Ask yourself:
1. HOW DO MY STATS
IMPACT MY
WORKFLOW?
2. HOW DOES MY
WORKFLOW IMPACT
MY STATS?
3. RINSE & REPEAT

29. Continuous Improvment Improvement
• Keeps users happy
• Keeps service relevant
• Empowers staff
• Encourages buy-in

30. Scan & Deliver vs. Angry Birds
• Launched in 2009 Today the world…
• Wildly successful
beyond expectation
• Fulfilled previously
unacknowledged need
• Iterative development-
new features, new
levels (i.e., collections)
being added …tomorrow the universe!
• Totally addictive

31. Forward the Future
• HD ILL article scanning
pilot, Borrow Direct
• Campus book delivery
• Adding more
collections, automation
• Better integration with
e-reserves, Ares?
• Collaboration with
preservation to save
public domain scans

32. Questions? Comments?
Tom Bruno
Head of Resource Sharing
Harvard College Library
617-496-7364
tbruno@fas.harvard.edu
IM: tcbruno2@yahoo.com
tom.bruno@gmail.com

33. • Step 1 – Asking
Scan and Deliver Statistics
Questions
5 steps to creating a robust program of
assessment and analysis. • Step 2 – Setting
Priorities
• Step 3 – Analyzing &
Building
• Step 4 – Presenting the
Data
• Step 5 – Feedback &
Continuous
Improvement

34. Step 1 – Asking Questions
• How many requests?
• Who is making requests?
• How much gets filled?
• What's the turnaround from request to delivery?
• Are we meeting the service agreements?
• How many requests are unfilled?
• How many requests get routed to ILL?
• Who is filling the requests?
• How are people using the service?
• Are people satisfied with the service?

36. Step 2 – Setting Priorities
• Patrons:
– How many patrons use the service?
– Which faculty or school are they associated with (Law,
Medicine, Faculty of Arts & Sciences)?
– What is their role at the University (student –
undergraduate and graduate, faculty, staff, other)?
• Requests:
– How many Scan & Deliver requests placed daily,
weekly, monthly?
– How many requests were filled? By which school?

37. Step 3 – Analyzing and Building

38. Step 3 – Analyzing and Building
Core Data Set: Data Table with all Scan&Deliver
Requests Placed by Patrons
• Document Type = “Scan&Deliver” (Transactions)
• ChangedTo = “Submitted by Customer” (Tracking)

39. Step 3 – Analyzing and Building
Core Data Set: Data Table with all Scan&Deliver
Requests Filled by Participating Libraries
• Document Type = “Scan&Deliver” (Transactions)
• ChangedTo = “Delivered to Web”(Tracking)

40. Step 3 – Analyzing and Building
Access Form: Input Dates –
when ‘Run Reports’ is
clicked, an Access Macro
runs in the background and
builds reporting tables.
Access Form: Download
Report Data, form displays the
dates in the current available
reporting table and user can
download data for requests,
users, and cancellations.

42. Step 4 – Presenting the Data
Who? How much do they want? What did they get?
FY2012 Report: Requests Submitted 7/1/11 – 2/29/12
[Screen Shots from Excel Spreadsheet]

43. Step 4 – Presenting the Data
FY2012 Report: Requests Submitted 7/1/11 – 2/29/12 (Patron Group)

45. Scan & Deliver User Stats
• 15,860 unique patrons since
service began in 2009
• Average Requests Per User: 9
• Most Requests: 1,807 by a
Graduate Student
• 36% of our patrons make a single
request
• Graduate Students are our biggest
customer (42% of all requests
placed).

46. Scan & Deliver: Request Stats
• Requests: 141,797 / Deliveries: 107,685
• Biggest Month (So Far): April 2011 – 5,532 Requests,
4,393 Deliveries

47. Step 5 – Feedback & Process
Improvement
• New workflows
– Do they impact the reporting data?
• New questions
– Can the existing reporting data answer the
question?
– What about other resource sharing services
(Borrow Direct? Interlibrary Loan?)
• Improving existing data
– Make the data clear to a wider audience

48. Questions? Comments?
Sarah Tudesco
Collection Management Analyst and Reporting
Librarian for Harvard College Library
617-495-2855
studesco@fas.harvard.edu
IM: studesco (Yahoo, Google Chat)