This document discusses interlibrary loan (ILL) systems and services used in the UK and Ireland. It provides an overview of the ILL options available in different library types and countries. It also describes recent developments to improve ILL functionality within the Koha integrated library system, including the addition of modular backends that allow Koha to connect to different ILL services and exchange requests via APIs or email. The document outlines the configuration and setup needed to enable and use Koha's ILL module with these backends.

1. iLL is going Viral
Janet McGowan and Jonathan Field, PTFS Europe

2. The UK/Ireland
▪ Academic Libraries (UK) - 90% of ILLs are fulfilled via the British Library
(ARTTel)
▪ Was a Telex system in the 1970s!
▪ Became ARTEmail in the 1980s/90s
▪ Became a web services API in 2015 (British Library On Demand)
▪ British Library is expensive outside the UK (hence Irish libraries tend
to avoid)!
▪ Public Libraries - UnityUK (1990s). Phone a friend!
▪ Ireland - Subito, Phone a friend!, BL (ouch, last resort!)
▪ Standards?
▪ What standards?! ISO ILL standards 10161 and 10160, NCIP
▪ Aside from BL, none of these services have any meaningful API to
talk to

3. The UK
▪ Every UK tender has a section on ILL - it is often mandatory. Therefore
essential the ILS has an ILL module
▪ PTFS Europe started work on an ILL module in 2015. It provided a
module which would work with the British Library On Demand (ARTTel)
service and also provide a generic email option.
▪ In production about 10 libraries but couldn’t get it into community
because very UK-centric
▪ In 2017 decided to split “backend” and “frontend”. The “frontend” is
common to everyone (simply a database structure to hold and manage
an ILL request). The “backend” represents the service you are
connecting too (that is, how the partner is expecting to receive the
request, API, plain text, XML, etc.)

4. Community ILL
▪ Koha 17.11 has what we call “Community ILL”. On top of the Koha ILL
module you can add your own backend. PTFS Europe have created 3
“backends”
▪ BLDSS (the British Library) -
https://github.com/PTFS-Europe/koha-ill-bldss
▪ FreeForm (sends a generic email to a partner library) -
https://github.com/PTFS-Europe/koha-ill-freeform
▪ Koha2Koha - Searches another Koha library via SRU and places the
ILL as a Hold on the remote system -
https://github.com/PTFS-Europe/koha-ill-koha
▪ We are grateful for the community for adding ILL in 17.11 as it gives us
something to build on

5. Work in Progress….
▪ PTFS Europe has done 3 months of work on ILL this year. Bug fixes and
many enhancements to “frontend”.
▪ Thanks for Hertfordshire University and IT Tallaght for signing
off/testing
▪ Fixes and enhancements to “backends”
▪ 14 patches in 18.11, another 9 waiting for QA time
▪ Documentation - Lucy has written user documentation and configuration
set-up for ILL for community manual
▪ Move “backends” to plugins??
▪ A backlog of “more” enhancements coming out of production use
feedback

6. Setting up ILL
▪ Only two system preferences -
▪ ILLModule - Enable the module
ILLModuleCopyrightClearance - If you
want copyright text
▪ on the OPAC
▪ Add ILL permission to the user you want to
manage requests
▪ Create a user category for your partner
libraries (e.g. ILLLIBS)

7. Setting up ILL
▪ Create a partner record with the ILLLIBS
user category (must have an email
address)
▪ Get the latest backend from the repository,
e.g.
https://github.com/PTFS-Europe/koha-ill-fr
eeform/tree/17.11
▪ Install this to the location of the
“backends”, e.g.
/usr/share/koha/lib/Koha/Illbackends
▪ “About Koha” messages when
ILLModule is “Enable”
▪ Set-up your koha-conf.xml file as follows:

8. ▪ “backend” location
▪ BL API credentials
▪ Some display options
▪ Recipient (for BL)
▪ Branch settings (each branch
can have it’s own settings),
e.g.
▪ Numbering prefix
▪ Request limits
▪ Default formats (for
unmediated)
▪ User category for partner code

9. What else to know….
▪ You can send an OpenURL (e.g. from EDS ILL link) directly into the
Koha ILL form
▪ Via the BL, Koha supports “unmediated” ILL (direct electronic delivery to
the user without staff intervention)
▪ List of “backends” at https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/ILL_backends
▪ Backends to add - New Koha to Koha.
▪ Subito (https://www.subito-doc.de/), used widely in Ireland.
▪ We have some jQuery to do realtime check on Summon

10. OK - Let’s see it!

11. iLL is going Viral
Janet McGowan and Jonathan Field, PTFS Europe