EFTS Future Viability

Posted by Alan Carr on May 24th, 2019 Posted in: Announcements, DOCLINE, Document Delivery
Tags: EFTS

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In 1996, the National Library of Medicine and the University of Connecticut Health Center (UConn Health) worked together to create the Electronic Fund Transfer System (EFTS) DOCLINE billing agent, which virtually eliminated the need to create invoices and write checks for reimbursement for interlibrary loans and document delivery between its more than 1,300 members. EFTS advantages include monthly detailed transaction-based reports, the ability to handle variable charges and the ability to handle non-DOCLINE transactions. EFTS has served the medical library community, providing support for interlibrary loan transactions that saved institutions the fees and time it would have taken to pay individual invoices. However, over the years the system has not been updated and fees have not increased. Without a financial infusion supporting migration of the system and a restructuring of fees, the system will not be sustainable.

EFTS requires a complete re-write of the code which is beginning to fail. In addition, UConn Health center is moving to Windows 10 on December 31, 2019, and EFTS code is too old to run on this system. Without changes to the current service fee model, EFTS will shut down. However, UConn Health is committed to keeping EFTS running, and has investigated the following options for continuing the service beyond December 31:

• Assess a one-time fee of approximately $200 for each member of EFTS.
• Create a fee based on usage by each library.
• Assist in securing another vendor to supply EFTS support.
• Eliminate the EFTS service.

Moving forward will require raising the service fee to cover the expense of continued support, which may be a burden for some institutions. However, EFTS saves process/billing time for DOCLINE users. You are encouraged to submit your thoughts on this matter and/or reach out with questions or concerns to Janice Swiatek, Director of UConn Library, Health Sciences, 866-561-5045. Due to the time-sensitivity of this issue, responses are requested by Friday, June 1st. Please include your LIBID for tracking purposes. Timing is critical as there is only six months to re-code EFTS before it becomes unsupportable.