It's been a year since the Google-like, one-stop WorldCat Local became the default, primary search for UW Libraries resources.  What has been the impact on users and Interlibrary Loan staff of this integration of the UW catalog, Summit, WorldCat, and article citations?

Users of WorldCat Local are discovering and requesting materials regardless of where they are held.  The increases are amazing!  UW users have:

 a.. Borrowed 62% more items from other Summit Libraries
 b.. Placed 114% more interlibrary loan borrowing requests.
 c.. Received 54% more materials through Interlibrary Loan.

WorldCat Local is also now the largest source of requests for full-text sent to the WebBridge link resolver.  WorldCat Local and WebBridge, working together, enable users to readily find and use licensed online articles.

So what has this double and triple digit increase meant for the ILL staff? Pam Mofjeld, Head of Interlibrary Loan, reports that staff members are significantly busier processing requests and handling all the materials that come through the ILL office.  The UW Libraries has increased the ILL student hourly budget and added a temporary staff position.  Staff members have been working tirelessly to insure that requests and materials keep moving without any significant backlogs.  Pam says, "It is always challenging, because the volume of activity has continued to increase.  It's been satisfying to hear positive feedback from satisfied users."

WorldCat Local is part of the Vision 2010 Initiative of pushing our resources/services into the users' environment.