The idea for this new service was born in 2021, when SLSP (Swiss Library Service Platform), the company responsible for managing the swisscovery platform, decided to equip its interlibrary loan service with a new logistics system. The introduction of the “SLSP Courier”, a shuttle service running throughout Switzerland, was intended to optimize and standardize document exchanges between libraries. In March 2022, BCU Lausanne and SLSP signed an agreement to enable member libraries of the Renouvaud network to benefit from this new service.

After a joint effort by the SLSP and Renouvaud teams, eleven libraries in the Vaud network have joined the Renouvaud plus project as of spring 2022.

In November 2022, new software called Rapido, finely integrated with Primo VE, extended the functionality of the Renouvaud discovery tool. Through a single interface, it enables users to search for and obtain documents from 181 libraries throughout Switzerland. The Swisscovery plus offer was then enriched by over a million documents from Renouvaud libraries, and users in the canton of Vaud now have access to some 20 million documents from SLSP client libraries, delivered in 3 days and for the same price.

The joint launch of Renouvaud plus and Swisscovery plus has made it possible to offer an identical interlibrary loan experience to users of both platforms, thus helping to bring libraries closer to academic and heritage institutions throughout Switzerland.

We would like to highlight the important work carried out by library professionals, who in a short space of time integrated new processes into their organization and tasks. These changes required a significant training effort in a new module of the Alma SIGB and a new logistics platform.

Readers have also made Renouvaud Plus their own, thanks in particular to the support provided by the libraries and the presentation of the procedure in a video capsule and in the discovery tool’s search assistance. In 2023, over 4,600 document requests were sent or received by Renouvaud libraries. Proof, if proof were needed, that this new service contributes to enhancing the value of Vaud’s collections well beyond the canton’s borders, while enriching the documentary offering available in Renouvaud. Thanks to the daily commitment of the network’s professionals, Renouvaud Plus is now a well-established practice, offering an unprecedented range of documents to readers throughout the Canton and the whole of Switzerland.