Prosentient's inter-library loans module provides an online union list for journals.  Interloans is a full-feature inter-library loan system developed to meet the needs of libraries who face the administrative and cost pressure of existing ILL arrangements.   

Libraries can request journals from other libraries in the network by searching an aggregated catalogue of holdings.  A load-balancing algorithm distributes the request workload across participating libraries to ensure that all libraries contribute equally.

Prosentient Systems has developed a practical web-based product that provides an document exchange system for collaborating institutions to share their document or subscription holdings, and using intelligent automatic ranking and workload distribution. 

Seven library networks catering for different library specialisation have more than 400 library members in the Asia-Pacific region.  

The web-based service has enrolled over 300 libraries across the seven separate library networks since 2007.  Its success rests on distributing the workload among the participating libraries and providing a very low cost infrastructure for participating libraries. The  annual subscription for the service costs less than a single journal subscription! 

Take a look at our gallery for example projects.

Please contact the library networks directly if you are interested in trialling or joining.

If you wish to set up a new library network or would like to examine the patron interface, please contact us.

Searching for items and raising inter-library loan requests

The librarian can search for journals using title, ISSN and keywords.   A requests module allows bulk loading of inter-library loan requests by spreadsheet and citation exports (eg. from OVID).  Requests can be tracked, and forwarded to other libraries.

Resources area

Interloans has a resources area for temporary storage of PDF's supplied for inter-library loans and for shared network documents.

Electronic and open access resources

Interloans has an extensive union list of open access titles and can track statistics of requests that have been processed through open access.

Electronic subscriptions

Libraries can register their electornic subscriptions through a single click for common package and consortia subscriptions (Proquest, EBSCO, etc).

Updating your profile and holdings

The librarian can update their library profile at any time, including marking times during which the library will be closed or unable to fulfill inter-library loan requests.  The library can review and upload holdings very simply using spreadsheet updates.

Reports

Interloans has both reporting and export functions to provide detailed reporting on inter-library loan activity.

LISTSERV

One or more listserves are provided to member networks to allow collaboration and communication between members.

Duplicates module

The duplicates module allows you to declare duplicate issues and match with missing issues.

Administrative functions

The administrative functions allow global updates to colleciton details, registration of new electronic journal lists and overall management of the network, including simple content management functions.

Further Inter-loans features include:

• a librarian can raise interlibrary loan request by email or by fax
• automatic intelligent workload distribution and ranking of requests
• automatic processing of citations into ILL requests
• bulk holdings upload and management
• a sophisticated and fast search engine
• links to electronic resources
• optional gateway to the Fulltext full text database resources with a federated search interface