• Resource Sharing
• July-August 2006
• Issue: 204

The Policies Directory and WorldCat Resource Sharing Auto-Deflection

WorldCat Resource Sharing now supports deflection of ILL requests based on policies defined by lenders in the Policies Directory. Deflection will streamline your ILL workflow, and reduce turn-around time, by automatically moving some requests away from libraries that cannot fill them. Instead of a request remaining in the pending status waiting for potential lenders to manually deny the request, the Request Manager skips lenders based on deflection policies, and automatically moves the request to the next lender in a matter of seconds. This enhancement benefits all users of WorldCat Resource Sharing, OCLC ILLiad and other resource sharing systems that send requests through OCLC WorldCat Resource Sharing.

For requests to be deflected you must set up separate deflection records in the Policies Directory. No data from your informational Copy or Loan policies has been migrated to the Deflections policies. These policies are independent of Deflections policies. The default setting is for no deflection policies to be set.

Through the Policies Directory, lenders are able to set deflection for borrowing requests based on three criteria:

• Service type - copies, loans, or copies and loans.
• Format type - 21 formats.
• Group membership - OCLC profiled group such as LAND or ZERO.

Deflection policies read from information contained in the bibliographic record for individual items. OCLC is unable to perform deflection based on specific collections such as Reference, Genealogy, Juvenile Materials, etc. Here are instructions for creating deflection policies:

• Logon to the Policies Directory at http://illpolicies.oclc.org.
• Click on My Units in the upper right-hand of the screen.

• Click on the link with your institution's name and then click on the Policies tab. In the same location where you create and update Copy and Loan policies, a new Deflections link appears.

• Click on the NEW button and you will be taken to a screen to fill out the relevant fields.

Policy Name - You must provide a name for your policy, this name should be meaningful to you, but has no effect on what is or is not deflected in the lifecycle of a request. For example, by naming your policy Reference, it does not mean that you will receive no requests for material in your reference collection. Deflection is based on elements found in the cataloging record. Policy name is a required field.

Service Type - Specify whether the policy affects only copies, only loans or both copy/loan requests. Service type is also a required field.

Deflection Type - The Deflection Type default for a new policy is set to "Enable real-time deflection." OCLC has provided the ability to turn off a deflection policy without deleting it. This allows lenders to bypass a policy for an individual borrower or use policies on a more limited basis.

Deflection Type - The Deflection Type default for a new policy is set to "Enable real-time deflection." OCLC has provided the ability to turn off a deflection policy without deleting it. This allows lenders to bypass a policy for an individual borrower or use policies on a more limited basis.

Users may not deflect all formats for everyone, thereby setting themselves as non-suppliers.

• Save the policy. Once a deflection policy is enabled and saved, it takes effect immediately.

If multiple deflection policies are created, the deflection process looks at the first policy, then the second and so forth. Once a request meets the deflection criteria set forth by the lender, it will be sent on to the next lender.

An example:

1. No eserials will be copied or loaned.
2. No manuscripts will be copied or loaned.

A request comes in for a manuscript; after the system has looked at the local holding record's bytes 20 and 21 in the 008 field, it will look at deflection policies. It will look at the first policy outlined above and see that the request is not for an eserial, so it looks at the second policy. The second policy states that the lending library does not copy or loan manuscripts. The result is that this request will move onto the next lender and in the request history the borrowing library will see that the item was automatically deflected.

On the borrower side

Once a request has been placed that might trigger deflection of a request, it will skip past that lender within 10-20 seconds of being placed. If the borrower returns to the request after it has been placed, the asterisk indicating the current lender will have moved to the next lender. The Request History will indicate Auto-Deflection: format type or profiled group or multiple reasons.

[OCLC - edited]