BONUS+ is a resource-sharing co-operative of currently six major university libraries in Australia.
It was the first international implementation of INN-Reach direct consortial software from Innovative Interfaces Inc.
BONUS+ was launched in October 2007 by six Australian libraries in New South Wales and Victoria, and grew steadily from then to include at its peak two university libraries in New Zealand, and ten across six Australian states and territories. Since June 2018, Helpdesk support and systems management have been provided by CAVAL.
The service is very popular with clients, and requesting is available to all registered staff and students, including undergraduates, who do not always have access to traditional interlibrary loan services in Australia. Registered library clients can place requests and borrow books as simply as they can within their own university library system. Searches are carried seamlessly across from local catalogues and discovery layers to the BONUS+ central catalogue, and clients can then place requests online for items not available for loan at their local library.
Member libraries determine the extent of their collections to be shared. 65% of the titles in BONUS+ are owned by only one library, extending the individual library collections and removing geographical barriers. Items are delivered to the requesting library branch nominated by the borrower with all delivery costs, which are economical, covered.
Since its inception, more than 760,000 books have been borrowed via BONUS+, and 830,000 library clients have used BONUS+. Our fulfilment rate over is consistently over 91%. Through the BONUS+central catalogue, staff and students of the member universities have access to over 3.4 million titles and 6.6 million copies of monographs that are collectively owned by their libraries.
Delivery of requested material between libraries takes up to 10 days due to the far-flung locations of member libraries.
APIs were developed by Innovative Interfaces Inc in 2017-18 to enable libraries using library management systems other than III to participate fully in BONUS+.
For more information please contact:
Sae Ra Germaine, Manager Digital Platforms, CAVAL: saera.germaine@caval.edu.au