NARA stops renting microfilm

We received a letter from the National Archives and Records Administration this week:

Dear Microfilm Rental Customer:

I regret to inform you that the National Archives and Records Administration is terminating its Microfilm Rental Program, effective August 31, 2009. . . .

NARA has taken this action because the amount of revenue produced by the rental program no longer supports its administration and management . . . Much of the microfilm pertaining to genealogy that has been available through the rental program has been digitized and is available at either Ancestry.com or Footnote.com.

For more information on what NARA offers genealogists, visit

http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/

Holiday slowdown - apologies in advance

If you order an item via ILL in the next couple of weeks, please be patient. Many academic libraries are closing for the holidays on Friday, December 12. This means the pool of libraries that we can choose from will shrink dramatically.

Also, most of our deliveries come by US mail. This time of year, the USPS is stretched to its limit delivering all sorts of goodies, so library mail may be slower than usual.

Please feel free to order items, but be aware that it may take us longer to receive items than our normal 2-3 weeks.

We will be closed December 24, 25, 26, and January 1.

Myth #7: "I didn't know that _______" is an all-purpose excuse

Fact: Patrons come up with all sorts of excuses for returning items late, in the bookdrop, or just generally not following the instructions that come with an interlibrary loan. The one that irks me the most is the amalglam of "I didn't know that _____" or "I didn't read that ______" or "I assumed that _____."

Excuse #1: "I didn't know that I couldn't return ILL items in the bookdrop."

Allow me to quote from the Interlibrary Loan Patron Responsibility Agreement, which all patrons are required to sign when picking up an interlibrary loan item:

"I understand that this loan represents a special service and that my obligation is to return these items on time and to the REFERENCE DESK of the library where I picked it up. I will not return it via the bookdrops." [italics mine]

Failure to read what you are signing does not absolve you of responsibility for the item.

Excuse #2: "I didn't know the due date was different from CCPL items - I thought I had a month."

The due date for interlibrary loan items is stamped upon the yellow band in red ink to make it very prominent. The Main reference desk staff (at least when I'm around) make a point of showing the patron the due date, and showing the patron the phone number for asking for renewals.

Again, failure to note this date does not absolve you from late fines.

Excuse #3: "I didn't know the yellow band had to stay on the item."

And the big black bold letters that say "DO NOT REMOVE THIS STRIP" are not there for decorative purposes. The yellow band contains information to help interlibrary loan staff match the item with the lender's paperwork to return to that library. It also contains information for patrons, including the due date and contact information for interlibrary loan. It also serves as a flag to our circulation departments if the item is accidentally mixed with CCPL items.

If the band is removed, and the item is returned in the bookdrop or in a pile of CCPL items, our circulation departments will route the item to our Administration office for courtesy returns. The ILL department is in an entirely different part of the building, and does not see these items.

Failure to follow instructions is does not absolve you from responsibility for interlibrary loan items.

CCPL staff - help us out by reminding patrons that the yellow band needs to stay on the items, and by pointing out the helpful information on the band. Maybe if we say it often enough, we can educate our public.

Myth #6 - The ILL department is psychic, or WHERE'S MY BOOK?

Fact: The ILL department cannot predict when an ILL item will arrive.

If an item is available in South Carolina, it is most likely at a library that uses interagency mail. This is a service provided by the State Library to nearly all the public and most of the college libraries. We have a high success rate with this, and requests that would take three weeks by USPS from the College of Charleston now arrive within a week. This is contingent on the lending library being able to find the item on their shelves and being able to ship it in a timely fashion after locating it. This service is not trackable and is subject to closure for holidays.

In most cases, we locate items outside of South Carolina. Most libraries use USPS library mail, which is inexpensive but slow. It is also not trackable, so if a library ships an item to us, we at CCPL cannot know where the item is at any given time, much less on what day the item will appear. Sometimes we are lucky and the item comes quickly - but in many cases we find ourselves waiting a month or more.

A few libraries will ship via UPS or FedEx, but this is rare and we are usually not told that items are shipped this way until they arrive.

Most libraries try to respond to our requests quickly, but some will take their time in responding. This is not something that we at CCPL can control; we cannot dictate procedure to other libraries. Obtaining items via interlibrary loan is dependent upon the will and whims of the lending libraries. We do our best to order from libraries that respond quickly but the rarity of some items may limit our choices.

So if your item does not arrive right away, it is not for lack of trying by the CCPL interlibrary loan staff. When we receive items, we process them right away so patrons can use them, but we cannot control the US Postal Service and are dependent on them for delivery.

Myth #5 - Amazon's ASINs are helpful in searching for ILL items

Fact: Unfortunately, unless the ASIN starts with zero (0) or one (1), it is not searchable in WorldCat, which is the database we use for borrowing books and other items. So if the ASIN starts with B or 6, which many audiovisual items show, they don't need to be added to the ILL form.

For film requests, we don't need a number; we just need a good idea of what the patron needs. If a movie has been made and remade, we need to know which version the patron wants. Having the star's or director's name helps. We also need to know which format the patron prefers - DVD or VHS. If no format is indicated, we will order the format that is most widely available.

For music CDs, we need title and artist. Release dates also help.

If you have trouble verifying the existence of either type of item, indicate that on the ILL request form and send it to us anyway. Not every item is in Amazon (though they'd like to think so).

Myth #4: ILL items can be renewed like CCPL items

Fact: The libraries that lend us interlibrary loan items set the due dates. For any extension of these dates, we have to obtain permission from the lending library.

On the yellow band on the front of each interlibrary loan item, we give the telephone number of the interlibrary loan department (805-6940) and ask that patrons call at least two days in advance. Some leeway is granted in the case of holidays. When we are contacted, we send a message to the lending library via OCLC or e-mail. When they respond (and this can take anywhere from 1-7 days), we contact the patron to let him/her know the new due date.

Sometimes a patron will ask Circulation for a bulk renewal of their items. Interlibrary loan items will not renew without an override. If you are doing a bulk renewal, and you see an interlibrary loan item appear, please do NOT override to renew it. (Interlibrary loan items will have the designation "ILL item" before the title.) Please let the patron know that he/she will need to contact the Interlibrary Loan Department directly.

Myth #3 - Every library lends for free

Fact: Though it would make our lives much easier if everything was freely available, many academic and out-of-state public libraries charge a fee to lend items or make photocopies.

CCPL does participate in Libraries Very Interested in Sharing (LVIS), a consortium of 1800+ libraries that agree to lend items for free. Also, these libraries will photocopy up to 30 pages free of charge. In most cases, we are able to fill requests using these libraries or other free lenders.

If an item is not freely available, we contact our patrons to give them the option of canceling the request or paying a lending fee.

Holiday slowdown

'Tis the season when things slow down somewhat in ILL. Many academic libraries will close this week after exams, and many public libraries will be short-staffed as people begin holiday travel. This may mean delays in obtaining interlibrary loan items from other libraries.

As requests slow down, we in ILL begin shuffling and discarding paperwork for photocopy requests prior to January 1, 2005 and for loan requests prior to January 1, 2007. The file cabinet will then have enough space to hold all of the requests we will receive in 2008.

CCPL ILL will shut down for the holidays on Friday, December 21 at 5:00 and reopen on Thursday, December 27. We will also be closed Tuesday, January 1, 2008.

Back from SCLA

I spent the last few days in Columbia at the SCLA annual conference. It is great to connect with fellow librarians who are making great strides in the library profession and are willing to share how they did it with others.

The Resource Sharing Interest Group is looking at a number of ways to regenerate and connect interlibrary loan and resource sharing staff across South Carolina. Our first initiative will be a survey sent to all resource sharing staff across the state. What we hope to accomplish is to create a community for sharing tips and tricks, and to provide help to each other when needed.

So watch your snail mail and e-mail - your survey will be available soon!

Applying Tech Trek 2.0 to real life

Over the last year or two I have been compiling a list of items in OCLC that have "Charleston County Library" listed next to them - but that CCPL does not own. I've been putting my findings into a spreadsheet on my hard drive, but this week's Tech Trek quest has inspired me to try to create a file in an online application. It was surprisingly easy to upload, and took less than a minute to do so in spite of the size of the file.

I will continue to add to this file as we reject requests to lend items that we no longer own. I am also comparing our collection decade by decade with the catalog as I have time - working on 1921-1930 at this time.

If you're interested, take a look - over 2,400 items listed.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pMy4FPsw9OU7HQSKtjqnmLA&hl=en

Crazy September

We have been absolutely slammed with requests throughout the month of September and are just now to a point where we can breathe, relax, and maybe even post to the blog. More musings to come!

Reading is fundamental

The ILL department tries its best to include all of the information needed on the outside of every interlibrary loan item. This includes:

• The due date for the item (in nice red ink so it stands out)
• The item ID (for tracking purposes)
• Out telephone number
• Any applicable restrictions (no bookdrop, no renewals, etc)

It is frustrating to hear that the information hasn't been read, or worse, has been removed, despite the large black lettering that says DO NOT REMOVE THIS STRIP. If the strip is removed, the front line staff do not always know that what they have received is an interlibrary loan item. The yellow band serves both staff and patrons by enabling quick identification and return of items to the correct location.

Staff: Please help us out by reminding patrons not to remove the yellow band.

Patrons: Please help us out by leaving the yellow band on the item.

A gentle reminder: new items are not for ILL

We processed 75 new requests yesterday - close to but not quite breaking a record. Of those 75 requests, 7 were for items released in the past two months.

Libraries won't lend out their newer items, because they want their patrons to use them first. We do not lend items from the new book section because our patrons' tax dollars finance them, so CCPL patrons should have first choice of those items.

Items published or released in the last 6 months are not available via interlibrary loan. If you would like one of these items, please submit a suggestion for purchase at any of our branches or by calling Telephone Reference at 805-6930.

For the person who submitted an ILL request for an item with a publication date of September 2007 - our department is good, but not that good! Future publications are not available via interlibrary loan either.

It's nothing personal

Over the years we have had a number of requests we could not fill, for various reasons. Occasionally people will call to ask why. Their tones of voice range from quietly curious to spitting mad, wondering why we are conspiring to deny them their constitutional rights.

Most people understand, in the case of hard-to-find items, that libraries may not want to part with something that is irreplaceable. Others believe that paying taxes allows them to say and do whatever they please, regardless of rules or courtesy.

Frankly, we are so busy that we barely have time to register who is ordering items, much less set up personal vendettas against people. We don't walk into the library each day saying "Who are we not going to help today?" It is much easier and better for my ego to fill a request if I possibly can, but the realities of interlibrary loan sometimes work against us.

If we are not able to fill your request, it is not because we picked your request at random to shred. It is not part of a government plot. We search to the best of our ability, and most of the time we succeed. If sometimes we fail, it is NOT due to lack of trying.

It has been a very long week for us in Charleston. Compared with our firefighters, we librarians have an easy job. Interlibrary loan is not life and death, and no one will die if an item is not loaned, regardless of what it is.

More numbers . . .

I've been working on some comparative statistics - comparing May 2007 with previous Mays, and January-May 2007 with the same period in previous years.

In May 2001 we processed 463 borrowing requests.
In May 2007 we processed 750 borrowing requests (38.3% increase).

In May 2001 we processed 237 lending requests.
In May 2007 we processed 291 lending requests (18.6% increase).

In the period January-May 2001, we processed 2419 borrowing requests.
In the period January-May 2007, we processed 3978 borrowing requests (39.2% increase).

In the period January-May 2001, we processed 1114 lending requests.
In the period January-May 2007, we processed 1621 lending requests (31.3% increase).

It is amazing how much we have grown!

Back to work . . .

I'm back from three days at Mt Pleasant. The change in routine was fun, and I enjoyed the variety of questions presented by a different crop of patrons.

But today I'm in my old groove again - and it does feel good to be back. The pile of notes on my desk was small, which makes me happy. The ILL crew and backup staff did an excellent job (just like they do every day).

A different perspective

I'm visiting the Mt Pleasant branch for a few days as part of our reference staff exchange. All those questions we at Main send off to other departments (AV, Fiction, Young Adult, etc) are handled at one service point. Also all reference-related phone calls are routed to this point as well. It's been a marvelous exercise for my brain but I was relieved when my desk shift ended at 3:00.

I'm also meeting our frequent ILL requestors who were just names on paper. When I called people yesterday to pick up items, those I spoke to were thrilled to hear that their books were in. A few came in within the hour to retrieve their items, and all were pleased with the service. This has been a great experience!

And many thanks to those who are soldiering on in ILL while I'm here - I appreciate your help!

What we lend to other libraries

We are very grateful for anything that other libraries are willing to lend to us. We try to express this gratitude by sharing as many of our resources as possible with other libraries.

In 2004, we began lending our audiovisual materials to other libraries. In previous years we had had a difficult time borrowing music CDs, books on tape, and movies via interlibrary loan. But once we began sharing our collection with others, we started filling a greater proportion of our media requests.

There are a few things that we do not lend:

• Reference books - because we need them here. If we don't let our patrons take them out, we won't send them to another library system.
• South Carolina History Room items - same reason. We will be happy to check for a specific name or page number and make copies of the relevant pages, if that will help.
• Microfilm - our holdings are limited and difficult to replace. Again, if you have a specific citation, we can make copies.
• New books - We like to give our patrons a fair shot at the newest materials. Once books move off of the new book shelf (usually six months or so) we are happy to lend.

Lending begets lending, so we try to be as generous as possible with our collection.

What happens if I return an ILL item late?

The late fine for interlibrary loan items is 25 cents per day, to a maximum late fine of $15.00.

If an item is not returned by three weeks after the due date, the borrower's library card is blocked. If the item is not returned by four weeks after the due date, we contact the lending library and ask for an invoice. Once we receive an invoice, the charges are added to the borrower's library card. Until the charges are paid or the item is returned, borrowers cannot check out any items from any CCPL branch. The charges are nonrefundable.

Charges vary depending upon the lending library. Nearly all libraries charge the replacement cost of the book plus a processing fee (which can vary from $5 to $50 or more). The replacement charges on a rare or out of print item can exceed $100.

Please make every effort to return interlibrary loan items on time. Keeping interlibrary loan items gives CCPL the reputation for being unreliable, and hinders our future ability to borrow items.

Statistics day

At the end of the month, all of the library's departments scurry around collecting numbers and statistics to quantify what we do - and interlibrary loan is no different.

At CCPL, we are fortunate enough to have Clio (http://www.cliosoftware.com), an Access-based program that compiles our requests and helps us turn them into statistical reports. It is much easier for us than counting a large pile of forms or entries in a notebook. The Access platform enables us to generate all kinds of statistics, including average delivery time (9.8 days for 2007).

So how did we do this month? We had 836 requests, counting requests for renewals. We were able to fill 573 of them (69 percent), including 23 items that CCPL already owned. We have 105 requests still outstanding, which means no library has shipped the items as of today. If all of those requests are filled, we will reach 678 requests filled (81 percent).

On the lending side, we received 312 requests to borrow or renew items, of which we filled 156 (50 percent). Our most common reason for not lending an item is that we do not own it (despite what OCLC may say about our holdings).

Over the last three years, our total requests on both borrowing and lending sides have increased close to 10 percent each year. We are busy, busy, busy and we like it!