Our new online ILL system, ILLiad, is ready to go LIVE for users on Monday, May 2!  Are you EXCITED?!?  ILL sure is!  It's gonna be GREAT!  (Okay, enough with the capital letters, you get the idea.)

A few things for MLS staff to know in preparation for going live:

The service has a spiffy new branded link, http://www.metrolibrary.org/ill [2].  Please direct users to that link.  It's the same ILLiad product that we've been working with for the past month, just easier to find.

We're calling it the online ILL service.  The product that ILL is using is named ILLiad, but since it's not an MLS product, you will see more references to online ILL.

This is a soft launch, so there will be no public announcements for a while.  Promo is coming later in May, with fancy bookmarks, social media announcements, and who knows what all cool stuff from MAC.  In the meantime, the best advertisement for the service is YOU!  As users come to you with ILL requests, urge them to set up their own online ILL accounts.  Bet you have some users who are already asking when they can do that!

A few tools are still in the works.  Andrew Soliven in HUM has created a short PDF tutorial on signing up and using the service.  Kellie Delaney and Tim Spindle in Digital Library will be providing links to ILL FAQs, tips, and the service itself from the system's website.  Hopefully, those links will also be activated in the catalog soon.  Staff will be kept up to date as these things occur.

Remember, the ILL staff is here to answer your questions and provide assistance.  Please feel free to contact us any time.

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has worked to make this rollout possible.  It could not have happened without the support of the amazing MLS staff.