Routing Table Building Best Practices

To get the best results for cost-effective and efficient borrowing, structure your Routing Table so that preferred low-cost lenders are in lower numbered cells, followed by preferred lenders with higher costs in subsequent cells.  

Some things to consider when choosing lenders:

• quality of ILL service (time to fill, fill rate)
• cost
• part of a library group
• reciprocal agreement
• collection size
• days or hours of service

Some libraries include regional preferences in their Routing Table organization - libraries in their state or region in lower numbered cells, followed by other libraries in higher numbered cells.  Libraries can also establish east and west coast cells if they regularly order rush requests and want DOCLINE to first attempt to route to a particular geographic region.  Routing table cells can be selected or deselected during the requesting process.

Last Reviewed: August 24, 2018