Customer Services Update

BLDSS Customer Rollout – Update (May 2012)

Ariel® Delivery (May 2012)

Loan Renewals and Waiting Lists (April 2012)

British Library Extended Search Services (April 2012)

Inputting Orders on your Behalf (March 2012)

Withdrawal of Delivery of Documents by Fax (March 2012)

Are your contact details up-to-date? (March 2012)

Public Holiday Closures (March 2012)

Closure of the Integrated Catalogue (January 2012)

British Library ARTEmail Format (January 2012)

Default Copyright fees (January 2012)

Withdrawal of Overseas Library Privilege Service (January 2012)

Acquisition Policy Changes (January 2012)

Chinese and Oriental Serial Titles (January 2012)

Payment of your Account – Remittance Advice (January 2012)

Revised Terms & Conditions for Document Supply (December 2011)

BLDSS Customer Rollout – Update (May 2012)

During March we announced that we aimed to migrate all ARTEmail and ARTWeb customers to the new British Library Document Supply Service (BLDSS) by 30 April 2012.

Unexpected issues, both for the BL and customers using some Library Management Systems, have prevented us from completing migration to our planned timescale.

Over the coming weeks we will be working with customers and our Technical Team to resolve these issues and hope to complete migration for the majority of you during May.

Please note, in most cases we will not be contacting individual organisations prior to migration to our new document supply service. To ensure a smooth transition, please consult the BLDSS Deployment Guide for ARTEmail and ARTWeb Users .

Ariel® Delivery (May 2012)

As part of the implementation of the new British Library Document Supply Service (BLDSS) we will be scanning all documents to be supplied electronically or by mail in colour as standard.

Colour scanning significantly increases file size and, whilst this is unlikely to create problems for those customers who receive Ariel delivery by FTP, those who receive Ariel by email may expect to encounter problems.

To help reduce file size, and reduce delivery failure, documents for delivery by Ariel email will be converted to greyscale prior to despatch. File sizes, however, are likely to continue to be larger than those scanned in black and white and we would recommend:

• Switching to Ariel delivery by FTP  to receive documents in colour
• Increasing restrictions on your mailbox to allow larger incoming files
• Advising your end users to similarly increase their mailbox file size
• For colour document delivery direct to your end user* consider switching to Secure Electronic Delivery, visit www.bl.uk/sed for further information

* Ariel delivery is only available to your organisation’s registered Ariel delivery address and may not be used in conjunction with an Alternative Delivery Address (ADD Address).

You can find out more about Ariel at Ariel@infotrieve.com

Loan Renewals and Waiting Lists (April 2012)

From 23 April 2012, to assist with migration to the new British Library Document Supply Service (BLDSS) and the introduction of automated waiting lists, we will be unable to renew loan items requested through our legacy request processing systems.

We would be grateful if all loan items could be returned promptly to assist with this transition.

Additionally, as we fully deploy request processing to BLDSS, requests on legacy waiting lists will be cancelled and a notification sent to you. Should you still require the item, and wish to be added to the new waiting list in BLDSS, please reapply once you receive a CANC reply.

Also from 23 April 2012, we will stop adding legacy system requests to any waiting lists. Legacy system requests for items on loan will be returned to you advising that the item is unavailable and to reapply via BLDSS once your organisation has been deployed to the new service. We apologise for any inconvenience this may create for you.

British Library Extended Search Services (April 2012)

During March we announced that we would be offering an enhanced Extended Search Service as one of the benefits of our new British Library Document Supply Service (BLDSS).

As we deploy BLDSS, our existing Extended Search Service will be replaced with two new services – Get It For Me and Find It For Me.

Through Get It For Me (GIFM) we will try to source the item you require for one of our 3^rd party suppliers. The price of this service is made up of the British Library Service Charge (currently £8.50, 1848 JPY, €11, $13.80) plus the actual cost of the item (and any copyright charges) from the 3^rd party supplier. In most cases 3^rd party supplier costs are comparable to the BL’s document supply charges.

However, if you wish to stay in control of your costs then you may prefer to use our Find It For Me service (FIFM). Through this service we will, for a small charge of £4 (700 JPY €5.2, $6.5), look for the item for you and tell you where you can source it from.

To use these new services through ARTEmail, or your Library Management System, you will need to use a message keyword code to tell us which service you require.

To use Get It For Me, use the existing message keyword code BACKUP. For a location search only and to use Find It For Me please quote the message keyword code SL on the TX Header line of your requests.

During early summer 2012 these new Premium Services will also be available through our new search and order platform BLDSS. Until this time you may continue to request an extended search through the catalogue or ARTWeb order Form. 

All extended searches requested in this way by International customers will default to the Get It For Me Service. UK customers may use the Stock and Location search option for Find It For Me and the Stock, Locations and Worldwide option for Get It For Me.

Inputting Orders on your Behalf (March 2012)

From 31 May 2012, we will be making an administration charge of £2.25 (USD3.6, EUR2.7 or JPY485) per request when we search for, and order, an item for remote supply on your behalf. This administration charge will be in addition to the document delivery charges and replaces the existing Faxline and Easy Order Services.

To reduce costs, and not incur administration charges, existing users of these services may prefer to switch to one of our automated requesting methods. Requests reach the British Library within minutes of being ordered and are streamed directly to the relevant storage area eliminating the possibility of any delays to processing. Orders can be placed for the 2 and 24 hour delivery options as well as the standard service.

Customers may also use our online order form ARTWeb and the blank order form accessible from Explore the BL until our new Online Ordering Interface  is released.

Please contact Customer Services if you require any further information.

Withdrawal of Delivery of Documents by Fax (March 2012)

From 01 May 2012, we will no longer offer delivery of documents by Fax. This is due to the rising costs of the supporting infrastructure of faxing documents as customers have gradually migrated to electronic delivery options. Please click here for further details of alternative delivery mechanisms or to discuss your specific requirements, please contact Customer Services.

Any requests received asking for Fax delivery will be returned to you asking for an alternative delivery method.

Are your contact details up-to-date? (March 2012)

To help ensure that your account and contact information is up-to-date and that you do not miss out on any important information about your account or British Library services, please tell us as soon as possible if there are any changes to your postal address, email address or contact details.

Correct contact information is particularly vital at this time as we near the roll out of the new British Library Document Supply Service (BLDSS) to all of our customers.

To check, or change your Document Supply contact information, please email details to Customer Services Accounts or telephone +44 (0)1937 54655.   

The British Library is committed to protecting your privacy. We will only use your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Public Holiday Closures (March 2012)

Click here for details of forthcoming Public Holiday Closures.

Closure of the Integrated Catalogue (January 2012)

The Library's Integrated Catalogue has now been replaced by Explore the British Library. The new search facility gives improved access to around 57 million records for items held in the Library.

Explore the British Library allows users to search both the British Library’s website and a large amount of the items available to customers from the collections including books, journal titles and articles, maps, sound recordings, research databases, archived websites, newspaper titles, trade journals and images.

If you have bookmarked http://catalogue.bl.uk you may wish to amend it to http://explore.bl.uk.

British Library ARTEmail Format (January 2012)

As we begin to deploy the new Brtitish Library Document Supply Service (BLDSS) we have become aware that the format of many of our customers ARTemail requests do not conform to current  guidelines.  In order for you to benefit from the enhancements which will be delivered by the new service, and to reduce the risk of failures, we would like to remind customers of our published ARTEmail standard, and the need to conform fully to these standards.

Please compare your current ARTEmail format to the standard, and if your current format strays from the standard, it’s imperative you change the format of your ARTEmail request files  to match the standard. Formatting errors in future  may result in rejected orders.

We have noted these issues that will cause requests to be rejected or incorrectly processed by BLDSS:

• Customer Code and ART password quoted in the incorrect order; The first line of the ART file should always be the Customer Code number and the second line the ART password:

• Incorrect ADD Address format; A file received with a line of text between the ADD Address command line and the delivery email address will not be able to be delivered:

* (without the blank lines seen)

• Conflicting Message Keyword Codes; One delivery method or search level per request should be quoted. ART requests containing both PHOTO and SED99, or S and SL should not be sent:

• Request number formats; Customer reference numbers should contain no spaces as it can cause the characters after the space to be lost from the customer reference:

 * (without the blank lines seen)

• Redundant and inaccurate Message Keyword Codes (MKC) on TX line; Our Handbook and Guide to ARTEmail contain lists of all current valid codes. Inaccurately quoted or redundant codes may cause the request to be rejected. Inaccurate and redundant codes include:

• Extreme deviations from our published Preferred Order of Bibliographic Detail; All new requests are matched against stock holdings. The better a request meets our preferred order (in full in the Guide to ARTEmail), the more chance we have of matching it accurately against the correct shelfmark:

* (without the blank lines seen)

Submission of requests in the standard format will enable us to provide you with a better, quicker and more accurate service from us – but more importantly, fewer failures on some of your requests which we could have fulfilled.

If you require further information on this issue, please contact Customer Services.

Default Copyright fees (January 2012)

The Copyright Licensing Agency, CLA, default copyright fee for books and other non-serial material increased from £10.50 to £12.00 on 1 January 2012.  The new charges will apply to copyright fee paid copies supplied from this date.

Withdrawal of Overseas Library Privilege Service (January 2012)

We would like to remind our overseas non commercial customers that the Overseas Library Privilege service was withdrawn on the 31st December 2011 and that all article requests supplied on existing accounts will now incur copyright charges at the full commercial rate. You can search for copyright fees via Explore the British Library at http://explore.bl.uk.  The copyright fee will be displayed as ‘Rights’ in the ‘Details’ section of the item you search. Where CLAX (copyright licensing agency excluded) or ‘British Library Not Licensed to Copy’ appears, our licence does not permit us to supply a copyright fee paid copy. However, CLAX items are available via our loan service.

Academic and Government non-commercial organisations may wish to take advantage of our new International Non-Commercial Document Supply (INCD) service which offers overseas non-commercial users the ability to access articles for private study or non-commercial research purposes at a reduced royalty fee. Registration for the service is optional and terms and conditions apply. Please visit our website for more information or contact the British Library Customer Services.

Acquisition Policy Changes (January 2012)

As budgetary restrictions begin to impact on our monograph acquisition budget customers may begin to see an increasing number of NPUR (we do not have this item and have decided not to buy it) responses to failed requests.

A redefinition of acquisition guidelines to reduce expenditure unfortunately means we will no longer be able to routinely consider failed requests for purchase.  We will however continue to purchase high demand items and continue to add on order information to our catalogue and maintain waiting lists for on order items.

If you receive an NPUR response, and are unable to source the item elsewhere, it is worthwhile to keep checking our catalogue for availability.

Chinese and Oriental Serial Titles (January 2012)

Historically we have been unable to supply copyright fee paid copies of titles published in China as they are excluded from our CLA Licence and our catalogue records show them as CLAX (copyright licensing agency excluded).  

The CLAX status for Chinese titles can be ignored as we now have a separate licence agreement with CAOD (Chinese and Oriental Database) that allows us to supply scan on demand article copies from all Chinese serials. The copyright fee for all titles is £9.00.  The database also gives us access to Chinese publications not listed on our catalogue, so we would encourage speculative requests for this type of material.

We hope to be able to update our catalogue records to reflect title availability in due course.

Payment of your Account – Remittance Advice (January 2012)

To help us quickly and accurately process payments against your account and ensure continuity of service, please return your remittance advice direct to finance-receipts@bl.uk, or by mail to:

The British Library
Finance Receipts
Boston Spa
Wetherby
LS23 7BQ
United Kingdom

Revised Terms & Conditions for Document Supply (December 2011) 

Due to changes in the legal framework through which the British Library Document Supply Service is provided, our Terms and Conditions for Document Supply (“Terms”) will be changing with effect from 1 January 2012. These new Terms will apply to any documents we supply to you from that date and if you do not wish to abide by our new Terms, you should not use The British Library Document Supply Service after 31 December 2011.

You can view the complete Terms here, but a brief summary of the changes are listed below:

• New wording to cover the re-sale or re-supply of documents to third parties
• New sections to cover confidentiality and our obligations under the Freedom Of Information Act
• Wording to explain payment terms and our rights where these are not met
• Addition of standard legal provisions e.g. liability and exclusions

If your organisation has signed a separate agreement with us for the supply of documents, its terms and conditions will continue to apply to any documents you request under such agreement.

If you need any further information on this letter, or wish to discuss the changes to the Terms, please contact the British Library Customer Services.

Click here for a summary of previous Customer Service updates.

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