I think I'll chime in here as a fellow lender. I'm seeing the same trend and I'm not surprised. It doesn't matter if I'm shipping loans or sending articles via Ariel or Odyssey or fax (or mail for that matter). I see the issue as clear demonstration of holdings by the lending library. Are we doing it? Another question this raises in my mind is: if we are putting searching into the hands of our patrons, can they all equally discern what is available and what is not? With patron-initiated requesting my telephone use is going through the roof to attempt to ascertain whether or not I have the correct material in my hand. I am a 12 year veteran of ILL; cross-trained on lending and borrowing and I ask questions of interoperability. What I've come to realize is that much of the conventional assessment of ILL is borrowing-loaded. Are we supporting the ability to supply to the same extent that we are supporting the ability to request?
John Sitler Interlibrary Loan University of Waterloo Waterloo ON Canada OCLC: UWW -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of ARIE-L Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 02:15PM To: ARIE-L@u.washington.edu Subject: [ARIE-L] OCLC SEARCHING Forwarded by the list manager ============================== Colleagues, These lists may not be the best venue to post my remarks but maybe they will reach many ILL people: (1) For the past year and more I have noticed an alarming trend of libraries requesting books from us on the OCLC e-book record, instead of the print/hardcopy record. In most instances, we do not hold the print version of the book; so we have to say No to the requests. When you search WorldCat, it lists relevant records in descending order by number of holdings. The print record is not necessarily the first one in the list. Sometimes, more libraries hold the e-book version than the print version, so the OCLC record for the e-book shows up first. This is not the record to use. (2) Similar to the e-book issue discussed above, I have noticed a *much, much more *alarming trend of libraries requesting articles from us on the OCLC electronic version of the journal, instead of on the print record. The same thing may occur that more libraries hold the electronic version of the journal than the print version. We have to say No to many requests each day because we only hold the electronic version (our holdings in OCLC for e-journals are put on the e-journal record, not the print record) and recent issues will be blocked from access. I would imagine that many libraries would also be saying No because their electronic access is blocked. If you request an article on the OCLC record for the *print version *of the journal, the possible supplying libraries may have the issue containing the article. Plus, if you have Custom Holdings set up (I can't imagine any library working with WorldCat Resource Sharing that doesn't use Custom Holdings, but there evidently are many), by using the OCLC record for the print version of the journal, you can verify that the libraries in your lender string should have the vol/issue you need. Thanks for letting me bring up these issues. W. Stephen Breedlove Reference Librarian/Interlibrary Loan Coordinator Connelly Library, La Salle University [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 215-951-1862 _______________________________________________ ARIE-L mailing list Mail the list at ARIE-L@u.washington.edu Unsubscribe at http://www.arie-l.org#subscribers Archive at http://www.mail-archive.com/arie-l@u.washington.edu/ _______________________________________________ ARIE-L mailing list Mail the list at ARIE-L@u.washington.edu Unsubscribe at http://www.arie-l.org#subscribers Archive at http://www.mail-archive.com/arie-l@u.washington.edu/
