I think that there is a key issue here aside from the fact you have fellow staff members willing to look into new procedures. Unlike many 2.0 initiatives you read about on the blogs, you had a concrete problem with current library users.

This isn’t the “we need to be on Facebook/Meebo/Flickr/Wiki because studies show we could get these new users…” sort of approach that often meets with push-back. This was “Our users have specifically asked for X which we currently cannot provide…let’s try to provide X by doing Y.”

The 2.0 initiatives I’ve undertaken at my job that have met with the most support are the ones that I can relate to a current problem, as opposed to the projects that *I* know will improve a services that no one’s currently complaining about.

I think you should also factor in that your colleagues most likely have seen you in action and are willing to listen!

I’m not directly involved in the finances for this, but I believe we pay for the Amazon books (which is a small percentage of books our users request), for shipping and for student interns on their end to process requests. However, there is no direct cost to us to process, store or manage these materials in the long term or for the materials already in their collection so we view it so far as a worthwhile project (it’s still a pilot project afterall). Whether this model is sustainable in the long run has yet to be determined.

Dana, that’s a very interesting model for providing services. Do you have to pay the entire cost for the Amazon books? While it has been expensive for us to buy all these books for our distance learners, it’s also benefited our collection greatly in some areas. Seems like if the other University is benefiting in some way, you shouldn’t have to foot the entire bill. But I totally understand your position and it’s a great, user-centered service model.

Thanks for sharing – especially the parts about strategies to get stakeholders on board, which I’ve found is often the biggest obstacle to implementing change like this.

Being a distance learning college with no physical library (we have a large online collection but very small library staff) within a large State University system, we are currently piloting a similar project – partnering with one of the larger universities in the state: we pay them for ILL access to their collections.

In the case of books that our partner University doesn’t have, they have the option, if it meets a need in their own collection, to purchase it via Amazon and that book then gets delivered directly to our student/faculty at their home address. The University follows up by sending a postage paid return envelope so the book will be returned to them for cataloging into their collection.

It sounds weird, because we are basically paying another college to help build their own collection – but it meets a pressing need on our end. The response so far has been overwhelmingly positive and the costs in funds and time for us manageable.

While we are pretty good about using the phrase ‘just get the lady what she wants’ as our customer service mantra, this is one we couldn’t push through. Guess we’re too big for that. Sigh.