The project is an interlibrary sharing system for e-books.
The Texas Tech University Libraries recently received the 2015 Rethinking Resource Sharing Innovation Award for developing Occam's Reader, an interlibrary sharing system for electronic books. Texas Tech shared the award with the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA).
“Texas Tech University Libraries are taking a leadership role in developing cutting-edge technologies to solve a growing problem academic institutions face in sharing e-book resources with other research institutions,” said Ryan Litsey, assistant librarian of Document Delivery and head of the Occam's Reader project.
The project team was recognized at the American Library Association's 2015 annual conference in San Francisco, where Litsey accepted the award and a $500 stipend on behalf of the team. The purpose of the award is to showcase innovation in resource sharing, encouraging other librarians and libraries to change the way they share resources to improve information delivery for library users. Litsey and programmer/analysts Kenny Ketner, Weston Mauldin and Scott Luker were the Texas Tech representatives who designed the project, along with the University of Hawaii at Manoa and GWLA.
Occam's Reader is a software program and the first library-developed system involving interlibrary lending of e-books. The system was created in 2011 and works with ILLiad software and PDF files to deliver documents electronically between libraries. Currently, creators are just beginning to offer the system to academic libraries nationally.
In order for Texas Tech faculty, staff or students to access the system, a request must be submitted to make sure the document meets the Occam's Reader requirements and, if it does, the reader will be sent an email with a link to the Web page and log-in information to access the e-book.
For more information on the Occam Reader's project or to see an example, visit the website or email libraries.occams.reader@ttu.edu.