From: KELLEN@clemson.clemson.EDU
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Interlibrary Loan
Date: 4 Jan 93 15:28:00 GMT
Organization: The Internet


  My apologies for replying so late to this thread; my e-mail
has been piling up.
  My experience with ILL consists of working as a student in
one office, interviewing another as part of a library science
project and having good relations with the one at my present
employer.
  Let me address the concerns expressed previously one by one.
1.  Carolus mentioned that "Interlibrary Loan is often 'strongly
discouraged' by librarians, who have limited budgets for such things,
and don't want to see it wasted on something 'frivolous'"
  The interlibrary loan system was originally set up to foster research.
The National Interlibrary Loan Code of 1980 defines the purpose of
interlibrary loan as "is to obtain, for research and serious study,
library material not available through local, state or regional
libraries."  However, there has been a code revision (sorry, don't have
it on me) which loosens that definition.  In my experience, no
restriction is placed on what may be borrowed by the librarians at
your institution.
2."At your institution" relates to the next topic of certain items not
being allowed to circulate on interlibrary loan.  Usually, reference
and special collections items are not allowed to circulate.
The reason that items are in reference is because they are high use
items and special collections items are usually rare and/or fragile.
Media such as video are also usually not lent.  Most places will bend
over backwards to fill a request either by photocopies or refering to
a place that may lend it, but no library is obligated to fill a
interlibrary loan _request_, especially if it may compromise their
collection.  Please have some sympathy to people trying to juggle
their responsiblities to their own patrons and helping  other libraries
patrons.  In fact, one of the libraries that I worked at would lend
reference book with the approval of the head of reference.
3.  Fees charged for interlibrary loan.  Please relized that
interlibrary loan is an expensive operation.   I have seen figures
that estimate the cost of a borrowing request at $7-25 even if the
lending library does not charge to lend the item.  If something is
esoteric or hard to find, your library may be forced to request it
from a library that charges. This can range up to $15 (all figures
are in US$) for Yale and Harvard for a book loan.  For sending a
photocopy, the charges can be even higher.  Some interlibrary loan
offices absorb the cost, some pass on the charges and some charge
a standard fee for any book loan.  Some comments have been made about
the libraries being funded by taxes, tuition, etc.  Forgive me but in
my experience the library is usually underfunded,  especially in the
states or provinces hit hard by economic times.  Maybe talking to or
writing to the administration of the university/city would result in
better funding and the reduction of fees.  Actually, the recent trend
that librarians see is the increase of libraries that do not charge
the user or patron for the service.
All opinions expressed here are mine, all mine and may not reflect
those of my employer, my interlibrary loan friends, my boyfriend,
my cat (if I had one), or of any reasonalbe person.
Ellen M. Krupar
Business/Textiles Reference Librarian
Clemson University
R.M. Cooper Library
Box 343001
Clemson, SC 29634-3001
kellen@clemson.clemson.edu