Tripsaver Interlibrary Loan Rebranding: Survey and Interviews

We approached the rebranding of Tripsaver in two phases: a survey followed by interviews.

The Survey

We included two questions in the Fall 2023 Student Experience Survey. We gave respondents an open-ended prompt and asked them to name a service that lets you request books from other libraries.

We received a wide range of creative responses, such as Book to Pack, WanderWolf Global Books, Global Pack Reads, and ReadRoamer. These responses reinforced that users understand the concept of interlibrary loan–we just needed a name that would communicate it clearly.

Next, we asked them to select their favorites from a list of names we provided. Interlibrary Loan was the most popular name. 

Results: BorrowPlus: 23. Interlibrary Loan: 28. Request and receive: 16. Borrow from other libraries: 9. None of these: 2. Other idea: 6.

Interviews

While Interlibrary Loan (ILL) was the top choice of survey respondents, we liked all of the creative suggestions provided by users. Our staff brainstormed and came up with two names that we would show to interview participants: Request It! and Interlibrary Services. 

Neither of these names was specifically included in the first survey, but we felt that these names captured the spirit of the suggestions and met our goal to find a name that would reflect the full suite of services we provide–ILL, scanning, consortial borrowing, and more–and would be relevant for decades, even as format preferences (from physical to digital) and user expectations shift.

Interview Process

The team conducted six interviews over Zoom in July 2024. Our participants included three graduate students and three undergraduates from four different colleges. This study had two goals:

• Learn more about the participants’ experiences with ILL that might influence their name preferences. 
• Learn which of two proposed names participants preferred, and why.

We first asked participants about their past experiences with ILL and searching for library materials. This information helped us understand how their personal contexts might influence their reactions to the name options. All participants had used ILL before, which means that those users were overrepresented–at NC State, roughly 20% of graduate students use ILL each year. Even so, most participants could not recall the name “Tripsaver” independently. 

Next, we presented the two name options using Figma prototypes of the service’s web page with the name Tripsaver replaced with the two name options. This allowed the participants to react to the name in context. We first asked them for their immediate impressions of the names Request It! and Interlibrary Services.

Participants were also asked to rate each name:

• On a scale of 1-5, how clear is it that this name is a service for requesting material from other libraries? 1 being not clear at all to 5 being very clear.
• On a scale of 1-5, how friendly does this name feel to you? 1 being not friendly at all to 5 being very friendly. 

Results

4 out of 6 participants preferred the name “Interlibrary Services”

Undergraduate and graduate students preferred this name equally (two participants in each group preferred Interlibrary Services). We asked participants to rate the names along scales (1-5) of Clarity and Friendliness. Interlibrary Services was rated as more clear, and Request It! was rated as more friendly. 

We thought the name Request It! would be more popular than it was; participants said it wasn’t clear what they were requesting, whether it was items from NC State, from elsewhere, or something else entirely. 

One question we had was whether participants would know what the word “interlibrary” meant. And responses were varied; some felt it was clear from contextual clues and from having used ILL at another institution before, since that is a common name for these services. Others had never heard the word but felt they could figure it out from contextual clues.

One thing that surprised us: when discussing whether the name Interlibrary Services was friendly, two respondents said that wasn’t really a factor for them; rather, they appreciated that the name sounded professional. This insight gave us confidence to select the name that was a little drier but more clear. 

Other insights

• Multiple participants had previously placed ILL requests because the forms were inserted into their pathway during the discovery/search process. They weren’t that familiar with the concept of ILL beforehand but found it easy and were happy when their materials arrived in a day or two. 
• We confirmed previous user research that it is difficult to create a mental model for article requesting, even among experienced ILL users. 
  •  “I find it a little bit weirder with articles…It doesn’t feel like a library loan in the same way.” —A grad student with lots of ILL experience
  • “Oh, articles as well? So how does that work if it’s like digital? How does access work if other libraries have access and we don’t?” —An undergrad with less ILL experience.

Article delivery is a more difficult concept to capture in a name like "interlibrary loan," since the PDFs being sent to the patron are theirs to keep. This lack of a mental model for article requesting is the reason we dropped the word "loan" from our new name, choosing instead Interlibrary Services. We believe this name will capture the breadth of our services for our users now and into the future. 

What's next?

We plan to roll out the new name, Interlibrary Services, before Fall 2025.

We worked with the Libraries Communications team to create a plan to inform users of this name change, leveraging platforms such as social media, campus eboards, news items, and print assets.