Profile Set-up
Perhaps the trickiest part of the ILL Direct process is configuring your Profile.
It's really quite easy if you keep one important rule in mind: KISS, Keep it Short
and Simple. For the most part this means sticking to the default settings, and not
trying to make your profile(s) do too much. Here's the Profile URL where you start:
You can have multiple profiles, for instance you could have a separate profile
each for Faculty, Grad, Undergrad and Other. But to start out we suggest just one
"universal" Profile. You can add other Profiles later as you get used to
how ILL Direct is working for you.
Here's a field by field listing, with brief explanations, of one easy way to set
up a "universal" Profile. Please note, when you get to the Create New Profile
web page, each field has a link that goes to a help file with loads of information
about how to complete that field.
Profile Name
Every Profile has to have a name, to be safe stick to a name that has 8 characters or less with no spaces.
Description
This would be just for your use, only you will ever see the information, so fill in or leave blank as you wish.
Request sources(s)
Leave blank. The default will be requests coming from FirstSearch. It will be possible in the future to also have requests from local Z39.50 online catalogs go through ILL Direct, but not yet.
Request type(s)
At the moment this will be loans, so make sure to choose loans. Copies will become available sometime in the next year. Then you'll be able to choose either or both.
Patron Status(es)
In general leave blank to accept all. If you want to set up a separate Profile for each of the listed above statuses you can, just be sure to use the EXACT term that is used on the FirstSearch patron request web page. They are Faculty, Grad, Undergrad, and Other. These have to match exactly. You can enter more than one too. For instance you can have a Profile that is for both Faculty and Grad.
Patron Department(s)
Leave blank. This could be a powerful filter, but...... the department names must match exactly with the names the patron types in on the request form. That could be very tricky.
Amount patron will pay
Leave blank. Both a policy morass and a very confusing field for the patron.
NeedBefore date
Leave blank. Once again a potentially very confusing field for the patron. Use your current constant data defaults.
Bibliographic formats(s)
This field works really well. Leave blank to accept all formats. To select more than one format (but not all) use "control-click" to select each format type.
Age of Material
Leave blank. Unless you're very concerned that patrons will request older rare materials.
Langauges
Another field that works quite well. Leave blank for all. Use "control-click" to select multiple languages
Route to the Review File if request is a Duplicate
Works great, choose YES
Route to the Review File if item is held by your institution
Works great, choose YES. Looks for your OCLC holdings only.
Route to the Review File if item is held by Custom Holdings Group
Leave blank. This field could serve to identify libraries that you are close partners with that you don't use OCLC ILL to borrow from (maybe you're on the same online catalog for instance) and make sure requests that might otherwise be sent to them are instead captured to your review file. You simply create a Custom Holdings Group with the appropriate three letter codes identifying those libraries.
Constant Data Record
Choose the Constant Data Record you want to be used for the ILL Direct requests.
Minimum number in lender string
Default is one and that's fine. If you want to make sure your patrons requests are only for more popular titles (or perhaps more likely less obscure titles) then up this number to 3 or more.
Custom Holdings Path
This is were you choose the path that you created specifically for ILL Direct.
Produce the request
When you are ready to turn on ILL Direct this needs to be set to YES. You can create a profile and change it all around, but it won't be active until you set this field to Yes.