uestion:
I would like to compliment NLM. DOCLINE works beyond my wildest dreams. Could you please explain the Electronic Funds Transfer System (EFTS) billing and how it will effect hospital libraries?

Answer:
National Network Regions 1 and 8 have had a billing system, Electronic Funds Transfer System (EFTS), since 1996. EFTS eliminates the need for lenders to issue invoices to libraries that participate in EFTS. The lending library transfers data electronically to the University of Connecticut on a monthly basis. The University of Connecticut issues the invoices for lending libraries, receives payments from the borrowing libraries, and issues checks to the lending libraries.

Question:
How high on the list of priorities is the EFTS? We use EFTS and we'd just love it if everyone did. It would save us a lot of billing.

Answer:
The billing is very high on NLM's priorities list. We are in discussions with the University of Connecticut to determine what is needed for a national network billing system.

Question:
Will you be doing any sort of focus groups involving people who have already been using EFTS to learn about improvements we'd like to see?

Answer:
That's a good suggestion. We will take it under consideration.

Question:
Have you addressed the issue of DOCLINE being so slow in the middle of the day?

Answer:
The downtime for system maintenance on the weekend of May 19, 2001 should have given users relief to the situation. NLM was retaining more data than normal (one year's worth rather than 40 days) in order to evaluate data for reports. These older requests have now been archived. We still need to evaluate some of the queries that we realize are slower than they should be. If users are experiencing problems with slowness, we would like to hear from you. Please send us a message via Contact DOCLINE with specific details, including your connection speed, what time you're having these problems, and what type of functions you're performing at that time.

Question:
Are there plans to make going from SERHOLD to DOCUSER and back again easier? For example, from who has what, their ILL, if they charge, or how they send things and back again.

Answer:
We have received similar comments from other users. NLM is planning an interface review design that will enhance user's ability to navigate between features in DOCLINE.

NLM Online Users' Meetings 2001: DOCLINE Questions and Answers. NLM Tech Bull. 2001 Jul-Aug;(321):e9d.