The TechSearcher
The Newsletter of Wisconsin TechSearch
July - December 2006
Thanks for a Successful 2006
WTS staff want to thank all of our clients for making 2006 a success. We hope that we can meet all of your needs in 2007. As always, please contact us if you have any suggestions for ways we can improve our service to you -- we love getting new ideas from our clients!
We're already working on ways for improving service to you....
Coming Attractions - 2007
WTS staff have been working with Wendt Library's Computing Services staff, Nathan Vack and Eric Larson, to add lots of great new features to our website. We based many of our enhancement ideas on feedback we got from last year's client survey. We're planning to roll out the new features in the summer of 2007.
The biggest hurdle we have overcome is moving our current site to Ruby on Rails. This required a lot of programming work from Nate and Eric but the final product has been up and running for a few weeks without any major problems. Ruby on Rails gives us the flexibility we'll need to add new features to the site.
Other features we plan to make available are request viewing and tracking, invoice viewing and printing, and copyright cost estimates. Our request forms are now secure, as well (although not secure enough to accept credit cards online).
We will also move our behind-the-scenes request management software from MS Access to a web-based Ruby on Rails system, giving us greater flexibility and efficiency. This will mean that we can get articles and books to you even faster.
New Fax Form
We have revised the form used for faxing requests to us. The new form is very different from the old one and more closely resembles our online form. We encourage all of our clients to use this new form when faxing requests to us, since it will give us all the information we need to process your requests. If you currently use the old form, please discard it. As always, the form is available on our website.
Turnaround Times Down
The average time it takes for us to receive and deliver articles that we get from off-campus suppliers has decreased over the last year. In 2005, we received off-campus articles in about 4.4 days (that's including weekends and holidays). In 2006, that time decreased a full day -- to 3.4 days. We attribute the increased speed to faster processing on our end and more carefully choosing suppliers. We hope that in 2007, with all of the changes we'll be making to our software, we'll be able to get those articles to you even quicker!AALL 2006
Karen Wagner and Rachel Watters exhibited at the American Association of Law Libraries Conference in St. Louis last July. They had a very successful conference were glad to be able to visit with many current and future clients. We hope to see you next July in New Orleans!
So Long, Library Express
Since 1998, WTS has served double-duty, not only providing document delivery services to our clients, but also processing interlibrary loan requests for UW-Madison faculty, staff, and students served by UW-Madison's Wendt Library. As of January 1, 2007, this university interlibrary loan service, called Library Express, was moved to the main interlibrary loan office on campus in Memorial Library.
WTS staff continue to act as consultants for Memorial Library's interlibrary loan staff for finding engineering and scientific and technical materials, since some of Wendt Library's collections are difficult to navigate. WTS staff also fill document delivery requests for UW patrons when the materials they need are located at Wendt Library.
