The RSCVD international cooperation network for digital resource sharing

During the pandemic, the RSCVD initiative was designed by members of the IFLA Document Delivery Resource Sharing (DDRS) Committee to support libraries unable to access collections due to lockdown. It was a simple way for libraries worldwide to request materials from other libraries on behalf of their users. Initially, this action was entitled “Resource Sharing in the Time of COVID-19 (RSCVD),” and libraries worldwide were encouraged to use the service. The success of the RSCVD initiative has been based on the outset on the voluntary contribution of librarians who, working together, have over time formed a very active and extensive professional community. Through various stages of development and thanks to the funding by European Erasmus plus program, by means of the project HERMES Strengthening digital resource sharing during COVID and beyond, the RSCVD community gradually became more and more structured and in 2023 updated its name to “Resource Sharing Collaborative and Voluntary Document Delivery” (https://rscvd.ifla.org/). The RSCVD community currently consists of around 270 participating libraries from 31 countries. From April 2020 to date, RSCVD Initiative has received more than 26,000 requests and about 78% of them were fulfilled. RSCVD service is based on the RSCVD App, powered by TALARIA, a free open-source resource sharing management software, released under the GPL 3.0 (GNU Public License).  The RSCVD App supports the entire workflow of a document delivery request (borrowing and lending), supports user and library registration in the community, multiple user’s roles and library operators' management, and provides the automatic import of document’s bibliographic metadata and the retrieval of the Open Access version, if available. The RSCVD App user interface is available, at present, in four languages: English, Spanish, Italian and Turkish, but translations in any other language may be added in the future. There is no cost to join the RSCVD community and, in addition to the free RSCVD App, its immeasurable value is the human factor and the expansion of professional networking. This contribution intends to present the experience of the RSCVD international collaborative network and the state-of-the-art of the free open-source resource sharing management software that underlies the service.