interlibrary loan

stories

stories about what

stories

interlolbrary loan

i love making the library do things for me at no extra charge. that's my story.

<3 it

The following title(s) that you have requested are no longer available.
At this time, we are unable to fill your request because we do not own a
copy which may be checked out.

The chronic Dr. Dre.

The following title(s) that you have requested are no longer available.
At this time, we are unable to fill your request because we do not own a
copy which may be checked out.

Interlibrary Loan Stories

It's a lovely thing.

Once upon a time, or as often as the urge strikes, I place a hold on an item in a library outside my local branch. Times passes. Suddenly the phone rings! It is the automated mechano-voice telling me my item is available for pickup.

I hie me hence, clutching my library card. The couorteous librarian hands me the item, checked out and ready to (Pick one:) a: read, b: listen to c: view.

The End.

i manage interlibrary loan at the college where i work. it is a great thing.

i'm amazed, though, at how many people submit ILL requests for titles that are available here. i can't tell if people just aren't looking stuff up in the catalog first or if they just aren't very adept at doing searches

i sometimes submit ILL requests for articles because i don't feel like going to the temporary main library (our real library is under construction). it's too far away. but it's terrible because i ask for a pdf of the microfiche and they send me a scanned pdf of ebsco host or something, which i could get myself and is not what i want. then i resubmit my request in all caps.

one time i got a book about native americans from a college in south dakota through ILL. helped me write the best paper i wrote in college.

Ned to thread!

I use it all the time, most recently last week to get that new FDR biography by H.W. Brands.

ILL magic

i like picking up ILL stuff that comes from somewhere weird, like the IMF library

Ned already posted smart guy

ned, mark, is it hard to track down the things that people request? i sort of imagine it like an investigation of sorts but i guess there must be a network of libraries, right?

i just got my first book thru interlibrary loan. it's like i've got access to every library in the world.

http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/default.htm

world cat xp!

it is the best

my first book: xuzhou fangyan zhi, from the university of michigan library, ann arbor. i'm checking worldcat for more shit now.

Ned already posted smart guy

Delay of game, laughing boy.

reference desk threads >>>> ill threads
instant messaging the reference librarian at my college

You people.

I'm actually doing a bit of behind the scenes ILL these days, nothing much, just some basic processing. Mark CL will have more to say on it as a field.

ned, mark, is it hard to track down the things that people request? i sort of imagine it like an investigation of sorts but i guess there must be a network of libraries, right?

yes, worldcat. it's pretty great, though i've encountered a few quirks here and there when searching something that should come up fairly easily.

what can be an investigation, however, is finding lending libraries that don't charge gross amounts to lend a title. thankfully our college belongs to some networks of libraries that lend for free, but maybe 1 in 4 titles isn't available in those networks and we to borrow from harvard or somewhere that charges $25 for a photocopied article.

that IM reference thread is awesome

Classic in theory, sometimes dud in reality because my local lolbrarians act like it's such an imposition.

Oh yes yay WorldCat. It's good stuff.

can also be a dud when i request a book for a patron and it takes 4 weeks to get here, and the patron's already done with project for which they needed it

but all in all it's a pretty remarkable thing

one time i wimped out on requesting a dvd i wanted to watch because the site warned me that it costs $15 for the library to request it. now that i think about it again i should have just went for it wtf

how come ILLiad doesn't have a competitor called ILLmatic

I'm glad I no longer have to deal with the paperwork, shipping, etc. involved. It's kind of a pain. But I use it all the time, so I really don't have any right to complain.

lol xpost

but maybe 1 in 4 titles isn't available in those networks and we to borrow from harvard or somewhere that charges $25 for a photocopied article.

as a librarian and as someone who uses lots of different sources to obtain articles, i must point out that in many cases, a lot of this 25 dollars isn't for the article per se, but goes towards paying copyright fees, unfortunately.

you're absolutely right, and while it's tough for small colleges like mine that have a limited budget, harvard i'm sure has very good reasons to charge for ILL, not least because they have such huge collections and would undoubtedly have to process huge amounts of requests if they participated in free-lending networks, i.e. there wouldn't be enough reciprocity that would make it worthwhile not to charge

yeah. it really sucks that they charge other colleges--i don't work for a college, and i understand the reason for the fees and stuff. but to charge other universities or colleges is lame. they should at least give you a discount

Once upon a time, or as often as the urge strikes, I place a hold on an item in a library outside my local branch. Times passes. Suddenly the phone rings! It is the automated mechano-voice telling me my item is available for pickup.

I hie me hence, clutching my library card. The couorteous librarian hands me the item, checked out and ready to (Pick one:) a: read, b: listen to c: view.

The End.

― Aimless, Wednesday, February 4, 2009 1:46 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Exactly! I used it just for research papers in college, and now I use it at the public library to get ANYTHING I WANT! (Almost. But in general, my reading tastes aren't too obscure and the local network is quite good.)

I've had several frustrating conversations with my brother, in which he whines about wanting a certain book but not having money to buy it, I tell him to go to the library, he says, "but our library doesn't have it!", I say "did you see if you could get it through interlibrary loan?" and he gives me the phone or IM version of a blank stare.

The library that I worked at in VA charged $3 for patrons to request an ILL.

At the moment, I don't really need it. Our system is pretty vast (with 63 branches).

Intralibrary loan is the way to go.

interlibrary lohan?

lolhan

Is this usually free in the US? I was under the impression (possibly mistaken as I don't deal with this stuff) that for us, in a UK university, all ILL costs £££, so we are trying to discourage people from doing it quite so much. And even as Joe Public down at the local library, I've ordered books from other libraries a couple of times and it's cost almost as much as just buying the damn thing - probably more now I could use Amazon Marketplace.

Mind you our stacks are seriously over-full with new truckloads arriving weekly and so we are sending our OWN holdings out to third-party warehousing where it costs us money to store it and retrieve it, so uh.

Hello librarians! I'm in yr OPAC, buggering up yr MARC tags, what with being a non-librarian IT monkey let loose on database maintenance.

I had the Ferenc Puskas biography for 11 months on interlibrary loan. I got it for free, despite numerous overdues and renewals,because the ILL people at work luff me.

Things I regret: I can in theory take out any book (though I would be pretty unpopular if it was one of the aforementioned pay-for-retrieval items), but I have yet to take advantage of this, mainly because the rules on pain of death = don't even think about taking it out of the reading room downstairs, and nobody else in this place leaves their desk, like, ever, not even at lunchtime.

(Could stay late for some reading but as my commute is long and buses are few and far between this seems pretty unappealing)

I can do this online which is handy, but have been waiting > 1 month for a book now.

"When I first heard a lot of the early blues guys, like Muddy Waters," (Angus) Young explained in a phone call from a tour stop in the Midwest, "I wanted to get more information, so I went to the local library. And I was really lucky. The girl in the library, she would go to great troubles to get into contact with libraries in America to get me information."

probably old.
http://blog.youdesignit.com/images/librarian_google_tee_opt.jpg

Once upon a time, or as often as the urge strikes, I place a hold on an item in a library outside my local branch.

Terminology question: if you are just requesting a book that might come from a different branch of the same library system what issued your card that is not what's called "interlibrary loan" is it?

I guess maybe it is.

Guys, when I was moving, I left some ILL books at the house I was moving away from (to come back and get them the next day) and they got Stolen. Someone broke into our house and stole 4 library books.

I haven't felt this fucking guilty and criminal since I was a religious person (and the feeling came with the territory). I can't bear to bring myself to the ILL desk and tell them I fucked up and lost their books. I feel so terrible. I have no idea what to do. I've been having DREAMS about librarians shunning and hating me. I don't know to do.

i would just be straightforward with them and explain what happened. they'll likely be fair, and if helps a bit, books are lost all the time, so it won't be that big of a deal. replacement of books differs from library to library, and your library will have to check with the lending institutions on how to proceed.

also some libraries allow you to just buy new copies yourself to replace the lost ones, and this ends up being much cheaper for you than paying the processing fees + standard replacement costs issued by the library. our library does this and students are very appreciative - they can find a new copy online for like $10, give us the book, and can avoid paying upwards of $70 or whatever we would normally charge them to handle the replacement.

I worked for the ILL at UGA (after Gov Docs and the Georgia Newspaper Project), and I can tell you that the book most requested by our students was "Morrissey and Marr: The Severed Alliance". I cannot, however, tell you what that means.

thx mark – I will feel better about doing this now.

I got a copy of Stan Goff's Full Spectrum Dominance via UTSA's ILL with its downtown campuses.

I'm sorry Full Spectrum Disorder is the Goff book; Full Spectrum Dominance is the Rahul Mahajan book.

lol

There is certainly plenty from which to escape for our intrepid neo-con adventurers, and the pitiful cowering Democrats (who will almost certainly replace them), as the private school thugs atop the world's hierarchy thrash this way, then that, seeking a way out. But they cannot escape from value, only make it ever more top heavy, and they cannot leap over the Grand Canyon of ecological collapse that lies ahead.

DO U SEE

I left some ILL books at the house I was moving away from (to come back and get them the next day) and they got Stolen. Someone broke into our house and stole 4 library books.

RIGHT THIS SECOND...

...I am processing an ILL item entitled 20 Jazz Funk Greats by one D. Dani31. Wonder who he is.

don't lose a British Library book, and respond to their emails :(

Guys, when I was moving, I left some ILL books at the house I was moving away from (to come back and get them the next day) and they got Stolen. Someone broke into our house and stole 4 library books.

At least now I know this really happens. People swear to me all of the time that their books have been stolen, but I always think they just lost them or forgot what happened to them.

Sometimes the librarian doesn't scan them in! Twice I've had to go and get the book off the shelf and have them rescan it, after it finally reappeared. Sometimes I suspect some kooky librarian intercepting books and reading them on my dime and then slipping them back onto the shelf.

ugh that's happened to me too. reshelving without it being "returned"

The worst part is: who would STEAL a fucking LIBRARY BOOK? They belong to the library, they belong to all who ask for them, but they cannot belong to a person! What the fuck, do they think they have some resale value? Why? Why? I feel like such a rotten jackass.

ha, a borrowing library returned an overdue ILL book with this message enclosed:

" 'A great book should leave you with many experiences and slightly exhausted at the end. You should live several lives while reading it' - William Styron, novelist, 1925

Please accept our apologies for the 'several lives' that our borrower kept this loan. If there are late charges, send an invoice to..."

hey belong to the library, they belong to all who ask for them, but they cannot belong to a person! What the fuck, do they think they have some resale value?

You see "ex-lib" books for sale all the time on sites like amazon or half.com -- some of them genuinely are books that have been withdrawn from libraries, but I'm inclined to think that some have been stolen.

I bought some "ex-lib" books right from the library when this was happening Hotel To Buy Library, Connect It To '21' Club

Hopefully the copy of the out-of-print Roadside Picnic I returned this morning gets scanned in soon and was not intercepted by my hypothetical crepey librarian.

any stories about getting an international interlibrary loan?

i just requested something from a library in THE NETHERLANDS.

i am about to request something via ILL! It is a book about....disease ecology!

xp sadly, no. our library only borrows/loans nationally.

I took the two books (of six) that hadn't been stolen to the ILL department today. Surprisingly, it was not near as scary as I thought it would be. They just told me they'd get back to me with information about fees (imagining $200+?). I feel a lot better. Thank you for the encouragement, mark.

Also I am banned from ever using my university library's ILL system ever again.

ILL na na

no worries, abbott. but this

Also I am banned from ever using my university library's ILL system ever again.

I'll only be here ~2 more years, and I was only using it to get books I remembered as a kid (or such) that I couldn't find at libraries here in town. It's not going to kill my research abilities. I feel it is a fitting punishment.

haha

Terminology question: if you are just requesting a book that might come from a different branch of the same library system what issued your card that is not what's called "interlibrary loan" is it?

I believe this is called intralibrary loan, though it is more commonly referred to as making a request, reserving a book, or placing a hold.

I wonder why the queenslibrary site is coming up as a suspected attack site?

question: when you do an interlibrary loan within the same library system, around how much does it cost the library? because I've done it for some paperback novels I could just as easily have bought online for a penny and shipping.

I'd be in the poorhouse if I were charged. I've got three books on the county's ILL queue and one at my university's.

just to provide closure on that anecdote
i never did get my interlibrary loan book from the netherlands

but still a huge fan of interlibrary loans