NISO to Develop Recommended Practice for Physical Delivery of Library Materials Document

NISO to Develop Recommended Practice for Physical Delivery of Library Materials Document: aims to facilitate library resource sharing

 The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) Voting Members have approved a new work item to develop a Recommended Practice related to the physical delivery of library materials. NISO is pleased to announce that the Working Group roster for this project is now finalized, and work will be commencing with a kick-off call of the group on November 18, 2009. Building on the efforts of three recent projects-Moving Mountains, Rethinking Resource Sharing’s Physical Delivery Committee, and the American Library Association’s ASCLA ICANS’ Physical Delivery Discussion Group-the recommended practice document is proposed to include recommendations for:

packaging, shipping codes, labeling, acceptable turn-around time, lost or damaged materials handling, package tracking, ergonomic considerations, statistics, sorting, a set of elements to be used for comparison purposes to determine costs, linking of regional and local library carriers, and international delivery.

 “A recent study found that 77% of academic libraries participate in state or provincial resource sharing networks above and beyond the 10,000,000 interlibrary loan (ILL) transactions that OCLC annually processes,” Valerie Horton, Executive Director, Colorado Library Consortium (CLiC), who proposed the project and will be serving as co-chair, explained. “The increased volume and costs of library delivery is creating a demand for more information about how to run efficient and effective delivery operations.”

 Diana Sachs-Silveira, Virtual Reference Manager, Tampa Bay Library Consortium, will be co-chairing the group with Ms. Horton.

 “We can’t ignore the tremendous number of books, journals, DVDs, and other physical library resources that continue to be borrowed by patrons,” commented Tony O’Brien co-chair of NISO’s Discovery to Delivery Topic Committee, which reviewed and approved the proposal prior to its submittal to NISO’s voting membership. Added co-chair Tim Shearer, “In today’s economic environment, libraries have become borrowers too, sharing more of their resources with each other and across greater geographical distances.  New services and technologies offer opportunities to improve the traditional ways such sharing and delivery has been done.” 

 “The three groups that have already done work in this area expressed interest in working with NISO to further develop their efforts into a set of recommended practices,” states Todd Carpenter, NISO Managing Director. “We are also hoping to involve carrier organizations and consultants for the delivery industry in addition to libraries, consortia, and cooperatives.”

 An interest group list for this project is available for those who would like to receive updates on the Working Group’s progress and provide feedback to the group on its work. Information on how to subscribe is available at www.niso.org/lists/physdelinfo. Visit the Working Group website at www.niso.org/workrooms/physdel. Additional questions may be directed to Karen A. Wetzel, NISO’s Standards Program Manager at kwetzel@niso.org.

 Cynthia Hodgson
NISO Technical Editor Consultant
National Information Standards Organization
Email: hodgsonca@verizon.net
Phone: 301-654-2512