New Year, New Colorado Resource Sharing Best Practices!

We are excited to announce that the new and improved Colorado Resource Sharing (formerly Interlibrary Loan) Best Practices have been finalized and are now available to all! The best practices were originally developed in 2004 and last updated over 10 years ago in 2015. To bring it up-to-date, we revised the document based on changes in technology, Colorado’s resource sharing landscape, and an analysis of best practices that have been more recently adopted by other states, which reflect a variety of resource sharing environments. 

During the spring of 2025 we gathered feedback on the draft, and me and Amanda Marez-Frutchey, the Interlibrary Loan manager at Pikes Peak Library District, incorporated that feedback into an updated draft throughout the summer and fall. The resulting document was posted for one final round of comments during November and December, and has now been finalized and published in its permanent home at: https://swift.cvlsites.org/knowledge-base/policies/colorado-resource-sharing-best-practices/

 Highlights include:

• Language shift away from “Interlibrary Loan” to the more expansive “Resource Sharing”
• Additional context about Colorado’s resource sharing landscape
• Elaboration on responsibilities for borrowing and lending libraries
• New section addressing responsibility to library users
• An expanded section of additional resources that are useful to the work of resource sharing

We hope you will give it a read, share it with your colleagues, and update any links you might have to point to the new best practices.