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n the months of January-March 2024 the library function continued to stabilize as more patron requests came in, solid database use was recorded, Interlibrary Loans and Document Deliveries picked up, and requests for literature searches rose significantly. In fact, all of the aforementioned metrics were up this quarter when compared to last quarter, with most in line with or above 5-year historical averages — all signs of ongoing recovery for the library.
The library's ongoing efforts to hire a new supervisor of Circulation and Interlibrary Loans came to fruition after several months of work with VDOT HR, culminating in multiple outstanding candidates. This quarter's Spotlight introduces Amy Skretta, our new library staffer. While we had an opportunity to hire for a second position from a strong candidate pool, we did not find a suitable match so we will postpone hiring until the fall.
Ken Winter and Gil Kenner continued a series of meetings with VDOT IT contractors and Identity Analysts for databases Knovel, Engineering Village and ScienceDirect, all of which are Elsevier products. The library's goal is to continue migrating authentication for these and other full-text online resources to a Single Sign On (SSO) integration utilizing the state's Okta identity management tool. The work is complex and has taken an unusual amount of testing.
Our long-range goal is to move subscription resources from the current hosted EZproxy authentication solution, which is tied to patron accounts in our EOS Online Catalog. While this solution has provided VDOT employees off-network access to licensed databases for more than a decade, it requires use of an extra password and is less flexible than SSO.
