Turnaround Time Between ILLiad’s Odyssey and Ariel Delivery Methods: A Comparison

Abstract

Interlibrary loan departments are frequently looking for ways to reduce turnaround time. The advent of electronic delivery in the past decade has greatly reduced turnaround time for articles, but recent developments in this arena have the potential to decrease that time even further. The ILLiad ILL management system has an electronic delivery component, Odyssey, with a Trusted Sender setting that allows articles to be sent to patrons without borrowing staff intervention, provided the lending library is designated as a Trusted Sender, or this feature is enabled for all lenders. Using the tracking data created by the ILLiad management system, the turnaround time for two delivery methods, Ariel and Odyssey, was captured for two different academic institutions. With the Trusted Sender setting turned on, Odyssey delivery was faster than Ariel for the institutions studied.