Interlibrary loan – a new frontier!
| Date | 01 June 2000 |
| Published date | 01 June 2000 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830010333563 |
| Pages | 172-176 |
| Author | Nancy W. Fleck |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Interlibrary loan ± a new
frontier!
Nancy W. Fleck
Introduction
Call it what you will, document delivery or
interlibrary loan (ILL) has become an area of
great change in today's library. The words
``interlibrary loan'' conjure up visions of paper
files and bulging mailbags of books and articles to
be sent to and from libraries across the country.
Indeed, this is the traditional way that interlibrary
loan has worked. However, in the past decade
many technological changes have revolutionized
the way interlibrary loan/document delivery
works for libraries and the patrons.
Scanned articles now can be sent over the
Internet. Patrons can initiate a request that will
go immediately to the library that owns the
item, effectively bypassing the Interlibrary Loan
Unit of the home library. Each of these changes
has speeded up the process of request/delivery/
receipt, the result being increased productivity
for staff and ultimately quicker service for the
patron. Even something as simple and
mundane as a new integrated online catalog can
have powerful results for an Interlibrary Loan
Unit. That is precisely what happened at
Michigan State University in 1999.
Patron-initiated requests
Michigan State University (MSU) Libraries
introduced a new integrated library system to its
patrons on August 17, 1998. The new system
uses the Innovative Interfaces software. This
article is a reflection of our experiences using
this software and the impact this change has
had on everyone involved. The previous
software used for ten years was NOTIS, which,
alas, lacked any interlibrary loan functionality.
Where perhaps ten years ago interlibrary loan
was not a feature of any system, it is quickly
becoming an important module of most, if not
all, new systems. One feature of the new system
that was particularly attractive to our library
was the integrated interlibrary loan module for
borrowing, including the ability for patrons to
place their own interlibrary loan requests using
either the telnet or Web version of the online
catalog. This new feature was put into place in
March 1999. New ILL requests now go to the
online queue immediately for processing.
There, the interlibrary loan staff reviews the
The author
Nancy W. Fleck is the Head of Technical Services, Michigan
State University Libraries, East Lansing, Michigan, USA.
Keywords
Interlibrary loan, Delivery services, Online retrieval
Abstract
Interlibrary loan and document delivery have become an
area of great change in today's library. New ILL requests
now go to the online queue immediately for processing.
Once authenticated, a user can input as many requests as
they want at that time. Work has begun on a project called
DRSS ± Distributed Resource Sharing System, which is being
co-developed by the CIC libraries and OCLC. Michigan State
and University of Michigan are also beginning a project to
test a new desktop document delivery system called
Prospero.
Electronic access
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
http://www.emerald-library.com
172
Library Hi Tech
Volume 18 .Number 2 .2000 .pp. 172±176
#MCB University Press .ISSN 0737-8831
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