Interlibrary Loan, Visualized…

A few months ago a subscriber to ILL-L posted a message about using a paper map in his office to help both library colleagues and customers better understand ILL service by marking the institutions where they borrow from and loan to. I thought this was a great idea and asked the staff in the UR ILL office if they could try something similar, which they did. However, when Google rolled out the new My Maps service as part of Google Maps, I instantly thought about transitioning our paper map to an online version, something we could easily share with the entire UR community to help interlibrary loan service to be better understood, both from a borrowing point of view as well as lending, since both are ILL’s core mission.

Yesterday I met with our ILL staff and showed them the initial map I created. We then reviewed what content to include and how to add it. We decided to include all borrowed and loaned items since January of 2007. Most of the data is now entered, but there’s some that’s still outstanding, but I’m very impressed with the results. Here’s a link to the map (we’re also working on an embedded version that we’ll host locally):

UR Interlibrary Loan - Borrowing and Lending

Let us know what you think!

May 19, 2007 | Filed Under ILL-L, Libraries, UR Libraries | Leave a Comment 

Scholar Rediscovers Interlibrary Loan Service

An article appeared on the website of the Chronicle of Higher Education last week written by a Fulbright scholar studying at University College Cork in Ireland.  While conducting research, she discovered that European libraries and their American counterparts treat interlibrary loan (ILL) service very differently.  ILL can sometimes be a costly service, especially to libraries with limited budgets.  As the writer points out later in the article, many, if not the majority of academic libraries in the United States often subsidize the cost of ILL service while many international libraries pass the cost along to those requesting items.

ILL is often a scholar’s best friend as it provides access to materials worldwide, and expands a library’s local collection exponentially.  ILL service is one of the aspects I appreciate most about my job as the Head of Access and Delivery Services as the users are often very appreciative of being able to access materials at other institutions that would not be available otherwise.  The link below goes directly to the article!  Enjoy!

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/03/2007031401c/careers.html 

March 21, 2007 | Filed Under ILL-L, Libraries, UR Libraries | Leave a Comment 

ILL-L Update

You may be visiting my site to learn more about the status of ILL-L.  Right now the list is set to emergency moderation, and I am experimenting with a couple of different solutions.  I am continuing to monitor the moderation queue for new messages.  Earlier, a few message that I didn’t realize were repeats slipped out, but since making a change, things have quieted down.  Our list host, Webjuction.org, is also working behind the scenes to resolve the issue but it’s still a mystery as to the true cause of the looped messages.   Please comment on this post if you  have any ideas or suggestions!  Thanks for your patience!

February 27, 2007 | Filed Under ILL-L, Libraries | Leave a Comment