[ILL-L] fun ILL blog entry

[Robinson, Arthur]

This has been our experience too.  When we implemented a limit (actually
patrons can submit as many requests at a time as they want, but I'll
only transmit 10 per week per patron) I was leery (I wasn't opposed to a
limit, but I wanted a limit of 20 or 25 per week).  But we've only had a
few complaints, and nearly all of those have been from people who had
abused the system, so I didn't feel too guilty.

I have noticed that the patrons who request the most items seem to be
the ones slowest to pick them up.  (Our patron who requested 126 at once
told me he was too busy to come to the library, which was about 60 yards
from his office.  I couldn't help wondering when he expected to have
time to read the 126 books and articles... especially since he had a
tendency to order articles more than 60 pages long....)

Arthur Robinson (GLG)

-----Original Message-----
From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Campbell, Heather
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 10:18 AM
To: Interlibrary Loan Listserv
Subject: RE: [ILL-L] fun ILL blog entry

With some customers, ILL is habit-forming and there's a lot of
compulsive ILL requesting out there.  WorldCat is like a candy shop.
Our customers will request more than they can possibly handle at a time.
In the pre-ILLiad past, there were no restrictions on  the number of
requests customers could request at one time and we had a lot of books
that went back unread or unpicked up and -luckily- free photocopies that
weren't picked up. We have limits on the number of requests a customer
can have at any one time. I know there are a lot of objections to limits
and I've gotten some scolding e-mails.  The use of our service has grown
while  our staffing levels have gone down.  Our borrowing request volume
went up 32% last fiscal year over the previous fiscal year and our fill
rate in Borrowing went up 54%.  We're still a net lender.


Heather Campbell
Special Services ~ Interlibrary Loan and Books By Mail
Jacksonville Public Library
Jacksonville, Florida 32202
ill at coj.net    904-630-2985