Thank god for Decentralization (in ILL borrowing)!

 Texas recently shifted from an OCLC product called Navigator Resource Engine (NRE) to a new ILL request & management platform called ShareIt, a product of the firm Autographics, Inc.  It was a change implemented by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.  I was initially very concerned about this structural change because TSLAC positioned itself as the "borrower of last resort" for the entire State of Texas, creating effectively a chokepoint for information in ways that alarmed me.  While it certainly made my job measurably easier for a time, the thing is TSLAC eventually realized relatively quickly that they had shouldered a task far too monumental for a single agency in Austin to manage effectively.  In operational terms, TSLAC allowed the OCLC contract to expire, which effectively terminated a subsidy that allowed all Texas public libraries to access OCLC WorldShare at affordable prices.  Texas public libraries are at liberty to subscribe to OCLC Worldshare independently but it is cost prohibitive.  TSLAC in effect became the only state agency responsible for (public) libraries with unfettered access to OCLC Worldshare.  Texas academic lenders (read: college & university libraries), because they deal more often with out-of-state lending, all chose to maintain their OCLC Worldshare access uninterrupted.

TSLAC, realizing they were overwhelmed in their new role as borrower of last resort worked with AutoGraphics, Inc. to come up with a plan on how to devolve the borrowing process back to each individual public library and wash their hands of the responsibility of being that borrower of last resort.  Because of ongoing intransigence of Texas academic lenders to get on board with ShareIt, even in-state requests from public libraries to academic lenders had to run through TSLAC, adding to their burden and probably leading to the decision for devolution back to individual libraries.

It was a bit of a painful process and necessitated us local ILL librarians to learn a bit of coding in building up our lender strings by hand.  There's a specific protocol we had to learn when completing the Blank ILL Request form online in ShareIt.  Potential lenders have to be entered line by line, carriage return after each entry, etc.  There's an official spreadsheet and between free WorldCat access or in my case using our cataloger's ongoing access to OCLC FirstSearch, and lots of cutting and pasting between tabs, between the spreadsheet and the blank request form, I've improved my efficiency and building lender strings for new requests in circumstances where there's little to zero chance of a request being able to be filled using ShareIt alone.  But the most important part is that the responsibility for borrowing falls to each individual library; TSLAC has stepped back from that role as borrower of last resort and thus can't be targeted by malignant actors who might seek to control statewide access to information.  That control has been diffused back to the status quo ante, back into the hands of individual librarians at individual libraries answerable directly to their municipal our county-level authorities.  This decentralization lets me sleep better at night in these trying times.