The Reboot Team hosted two virtual town hall events to foster community discussion and gather feedback on the manifesto. Over 150 resource sharing professionals joined from a diverse array of libraries. These town halls followed the Chatham House Rule and were not recorded, but below is a summary of the events:

• The town halls were held on November 19th with 76 attendees and December 3rd with 82 attendees. 
• Over 75% of the town hall attendees were interacting with RRSI for the first time! Other attendees had previously filled out the STAR Checklist or attended a past event.
• The town halls started with an overview of the RRSI Reboot Team’s efforts, including unveiling RRSI’s new logo and website design, a review of the updated and past manifesto, and a brief history of RRSI. The floor was then opened for discussion of the updated manifesto. 

Of the issues raised at both town hall meetings regarding the updated manifesto, these ideas seemed to resonate the most with attendees:

Interoperability

• Concerns about reliance on vendors/proprietary systems and networks to participate in ILL
• System interoperability would be a good addition to the manifesto
• However, we can influence something like interoperability, but we can’t control it. Is this a value that belongs in the manifesto?
• Many libraries have outsourced the technical skills required to obtain interoperability. Libraries may need to equip themselves (perhaps within library consortia, not individual libraries) to contribute to technical solutions.
• Crosslink (IDS Network) was mentioned as an example of a tool for interoperability developed by the library community

Ebooks

• Ebook lending standards (clear and consistent language allowing resource sharing to include in electronic resource licenses)
• Consistent ebook format across vendors (full book download possible; DRM free)
• The Boston Library Consortium is making progress with their recent work on ebook lending
• Vendors benefit from inconsistency and vagueness in licenses; the simpler and more unified we could be (i.e. by referring to compliance with a standard), the more consistent for ebook licensing.

Miscellaneous

• These draft values seem applicable to the realities of funding, staffing, technology, workflows, and patron needs
• PALCI consortium recently released their Digital Sharing Strategy, which includes many of these same values
• The values of “equitable” and “collaborative” stood out to one solo ILL practitioner at a small library as a way of ensuring that their patrons have access to resources and that all practitioners have access to training
• Important to include a nod to reference services (as was in the original manifesto) – providing additional support beyond a “no”
• Could “affordability” be a value? We can advocate for it, but we lack control over it
• Recommend taking a stronger stance on “advocacy” as a value in the manifesto

Attendees also expressed a number of other more general thoughts, outside of the manifesto discussion:

• Keep holding these types of events intended for practitioners; future town halls
• Hold future town halls or events like this, but specifically exclude vendors or only include them as part of a panel discussion
• Several people expressed support for these consortium-agnostic town halls and that they felt heard at these events
• One person expressed that consortium-agnostic events like these are “so helpful and important for getting us out of our silos.”
• People noted that resource sharing practitioners tend to be collaborative and supportive

What’s next?

The RRSI Reboot Team is currently reviewing feedback submitted through the online form and provided at the Town Halls. We plan to discuss and revise RRSI’s updated manifesto, with an aim to publish a finalized version in Spring 2026.

You can find information on the takeaways of those conversations on the RRSI April Future ILL Virtual Conversations page and the NW ILL & RS Conference Sept 2021 ILL Virtual Conversations page.

Due to popular demand, we’re going to try and continue the monthly chat format through the Spring, but in the meantime here are the Storify links to all of our previous #RRSChats (including today’s chat):

Fall 2013

• “ILL Best and Worst Practices”– 9/23/2013
• “E-Books, Licenses & Copyright (Oh, My!)”– 10/28/2013
• “Around the World in 80 Routing Days or Less- International ILL” – 11/18/2013

Fall 2014

• “Let’s Talk About Workflow” – 9/24/2014
• “Buy vs. Borrow” – 10/27/2014
• “Scan All The Things” – 11/17/2014
• “The User Experience” – 12/15/2014

Fall 2015

• “Ebooks and Beyond!” – 9/30/2015
• “ILL Horror Stories” – 10/30/2015
• “Consortial Borrowing/Lending, State Library Systems, and Other Alternate Resource Sharing Platforms” – 11/23/2015
• “Resource Sharing Behind The Scenes” – 12/18/15

Thank you again for your participation, and happy holidays to all!

Here is a Storify link to today’s chat:  https://storify.com/oodja/ebooks-and-beyond

Also, for quick and easy reference, here is a list of links to all of our past #RRSChats…

Fall 2013

• “ILL Best and Worst Practices”– 9/23/2013 
• “E-Books, Licenses & Copyright (Oh, My!)”– 10/28/2013
• “Around the World in 80 Routing Days or Less- International ILL” – 11/18/2013

Fall 2014

• “Let’s Talk About Workflow” – 9/24/2014
• “Buy vs. Borrow” – 10/27/2014
• “Scan All The Things” – 11/17/2014
• “The User Experience” – 12/15/2014

Fall 2015

• “Ebooks and Beyond!” – 9/30/2015
• “ILL Horror Stories” – 10/30/2015
• “Consortial Borrowing/Lending, State Library Systems, and Other Alternate Resource Sharing Platforms” – 11/23/2015
• “Resource Sharing Behind The Scenes” – 12/18/15

Join us on Friday October 30th at 12 noon Eastern time for our next #RRSChat- “ILL Horror Stories”, our first Halloween-themed Twitter chat! Come to hear tales of resource sharing gone horribly wrong, or share some of your own.

Our first topic will be: “E-Books And Beyond!”  The publishing industry says ebooks have been a mixed bag for readers, but as libraries continue to acquire them our need to effectively share them via ILL becomes less and less of a theoretical issue and more and more important to our ongoing operations. What’s coming next in the history of the book, and are we prepared for it? Ryan Litsey from Texas Tech University will be joining us to talk about the Occam’s Reader project.

Join us on the ‪#‎RRSChat‬ hashtag next Wednesday (9/30) at 12 noon Eastern Time!

Here is a schedule of future chats and chat topics:

Friday, October 30, 12-1pm Eastern Time.  “ILL Horror Stories”, our first-ever Halloween themed #RRSChat! Join us for a lively (or perhaps even undead) conversation about when resource sharing has gone horribly wrong. Bring your own tale of ILL horror to share/scare with your colleagues!

Monday, November 23, 12-1pm Eastern Time.  “Consortial Borrowing/Lending, State Library Systems, and Other Alternate Resource Sharing Platforms”. Do you belong to a consortium or state/community ILL network? How do you incorporate discovery and fulfillment into your existing resource sharing workflows?  Join us for a discussion about existing alternatives to OCLC and traditional ILL and take a whirlwind tour of some successful experiments in community-based resource sharing platforms.

Friday, December 18, 12-1pm Eastern Time. “Resource Sharing Behind The Scenes- How to use promotion and advertising to put a face behind the ILL transaction.” Interlibrary loan is the quintessential back-office operation- sometimes we are so invisible that patrons don’t even know we exist! How do we make our services visible to our stakeholders and help patrons help us with fulfilling their ILL requests? We’ll take a look at some ILL shops which have done successful public outreach, and hopefully share some of our own efforts with the group.

We hope to see you on Twitter on the #RRSChat for some or all of these upcoming chats!  And special thanks to all of you who filled out our survey over the summer: our dates/times and list of chat topics for this year are both the direct result of your input.

– Tom Bruno, your #RRSChat host

Our first topic will be: “Let’s Talk About Workflow”. How does your library staff ILL request processing. Does an MLS process your requests? Do paraprofessionals? Students? And do you share your ILL workflows with other units? Let’s compare notes and see what everyone is doing.

Join us on the ‪#‎RRSChat‬ hashtag next Monday (9/29) at 2pm EST!

Here is a schedule of future chats and chat topics:

Monday, October 27th @ 2pm EST. “Buy vs. Borrow”. We will discuss the changing role of purchasing materials in ILL workflows, addressing such topics as practicality, legality, GIST, and whether or not ILL “belongs” in collection development.

Monday, November 17th @ 2pm EST. “Scan All The Things!” Scanning operations and resource sharing. What does your library scan? ILL, document delivery, reserves, special collections… or even other things? A discussion of the role of digitization in the ILL shop.

Next up is international ILL. Date is Monday November 18th, time is 1:00 pm EST:

International ILL is growing by leaps and bounds as bibliographic discovery goes global, but often it still feels like a guessing game to even the most seasoned resource sharing veterans. Join Rethinking Resource Sharing to share your tips, tricks, and best practices for International interlibrary loan.

See you on 11/18!

Our next chat topic will be: “E-Books, Licenses, and Copyright (Oh, My!)”

The digital revolution is changing libraries as a whole, but ILL librarians find themselves increasingly challenged to meet the needs of our patrons while navigating an ever-shifting resource sharing landscape. Join us for a discussion of how eBooks and other born digital resources are changing how we borrow and lend library material, and what impact licensing and copyright law may have in a born-digital world.

Jump into @RRSChat and connect with your community!

The transcript for last month’s chat about ILL Best and Worst Practices is available at the following link:

http://storify.com/oodja/ill-best-and-worst-practices-a-twitter-chat-spons

• Do you have an ILL policy/procedure that you’re particularly proud of and want to share?
• Do you have a pet peeve about something that other libraries do all the time but maybe shouldn’t?

Join the Rethinking Resource Sharing community on Twitter to talk about our best and worst practices in the wonderful world of resource sharing.

Look for #RRSchat and join in!

Date: Monday September 30th
Time: 3 pm EST
Location: Earth/Twitter via #RRSchat