The author examines the migration of Indiana University Libraries’ interlibrary loan platform, ILLiad, from a locally-hosted server to OCLC hosting through the perspective of a new department head inheriting this critical technology decision. He explores how staffing changes, lost institutional knowledge, recurring system instability, and limited technical capacity prompted a reassessment of long-standing local practices. The piece outlines research, consortium consultation, approval processes, implementation challenges, authentication and workflow issues, and post-migration tradeoffs. Ultimately, the author offers practical guidance for new leaders tasked with managing inherited systems, vendor relationships, imperfect information, and strategic change in complex academic library environments.
Garrett Griffith (Mon,) studied this question.
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