Using Software-as-a-Service for tracking document delivery (& ILL) requests Perseus Rex Molina Cataloger Librarian Br. Fidelis Leddy Learning Resource Center (LRC) De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (Manila) Jorge Erwin A. Rada Public Programs Librarian Janice D.C. Peñaflor Collection Development Librarian De La Salle University Libraries De La Salle University (Manila)

Outline Background of the case study Past problems – What we needed to solve How we solved it Results Issues and Recommendations

Introduction Philippine private Catholic university founded in 1911 by the Brothers of Christian Schools Libraries caters to an average of over 1,000 teaching academic staff, 16,000 undergraduate students and 4,000 graduate students every term (for 3 terms / year)

started out as one lowly library in 1956 but is now composed of – the main library called The Learning Commons – and several satellite libraries Introduction

What is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)? ● Part of “cloud computing” concepts ● Aka “hosted applications” ● software and associated data are centrally hosted on the cloud (over the Internet)

Issues in document delivery (DD) and interlibrary loan (ILL) in DLSU Libraries Requests can come from different channels Piece of paper / Form Chat messageWeb Form Text messageVideo CallTwitter messageFacebook message

There has been difficulty obtaining statistics for these services Piece of paper / Form Chat message Web Form Text message Video Call Twitter message Facebook message Issues in document delivery (DD) and interlibrary loan (ILL) in DLSU Libraries

Continuity between reference librarians in different shifts Issues in document delivery (DD) and interlibrary loan (ILL) in DLSU Libraries

Requirements for a solution Online central recording of all transactions regardless of channel DATABASE

Reasons why we chose Software-as-a- Service for a solution Faster deployment Simpler and easier than building from scratch Service continuity

How we solved it iFreeTools Creator Free plan: unlimited apps, 10 users, 2,500 records

iFreeTools Creator offers free hosted applications for business needs enables one to build custom database apps without programming skills required log in using a Google or Yahoo account How we solved it

iFreeTools Creator ● Built over Google App Engine ● What is Google App Engine? ● lets you run web applications on Google's infrastructure ● no servers to maintain ● supports apps written in several programming languages (Java, Python, or Go runtime environments) ● All applications can use up to 1 GB of storage and enough CPU and bandwidth to support an efficient app serving around 5 million page views a month, absolutely free How we solved it

DD/ILL Request Reference #Date requested Type of Request Source of Request Name of Requestor Dept.…. Record 1 Record 2 Record 3 Record 4 Record 5 …

How we solved it TIMELINE Data model Configuration JAN 2013 Tracking system went live FEB 2013 End of beta testing Upgrade to paid version AUG 2013 External requesting libraries must use online form SEP 2013

toggle visible columns, instant search, sorting, filtering How we solved it

● Instant view: clicking on a row will show full details of the record at bottom of the page. How we solved it

● Actions ● View Details ● Edit Details ● Delete ● Duplicate How we solved it

ILL/DD Tracking System

iFreeTools Creator

Results

“The Libraries’ forays into utilizing Software-as-a- Service applications have been successful so far, and not only are SaaS applications faster to deploy, but they free the Libraries from installation, maintenance and hardware requirements a typical software for team collaboration may demand.”

Issues and Recommendations ● For SaaS providers ● offer long/unlimited free trial that is as much as possible is close to the paid version ● For libraries ● make sure your data can be exported from system, then backup regularly! ● do a cost-benefit analysis

The DLSU Libraries’ Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan Requests Tracking System is a product of its librarians’ attitude of making the most out of available resources. It proves that any library can adapt and get behind utilizing cloud solutions despite technological or budget obstacles. Conclusion

Thank you!