[ILL-L] "In Library Use Only" - do you conditional first?

[Laura Barnard]

As lenders:
We do  not conditional that an item will be restricted to Library Use Only.  We lend quite a lot of genealogy, and are surprisingly liberal about lending from some special collections (aero, marine), but only on the condition of use in the  library.  Taking the time to conditional these is time we wouldn't  give to other things.  

As borrowers:
One of the earliest things I learned in ILL was that we REQUEST material, we don't order it; we are asking to borrow something that doesn't belong to us, and we take the material on whatever condition the lending library sets -  library use only, no renewal, return in a box, return via traceable carrier, no copying, short loan period, IFM only, invoice only (did I miss anything?) - and we should occasionally express some gratitude for the generosity.  We do not assume that a request for loan inherently means for a circulating copy, but assume that if we cannot take a loan on some certain condition - max cost, long loan period, etc - that it is our responsibility as a borrower to make that condition known to the lender.  It is not unlike asking a  neighbor if you can borrow his/her tools.

We receive a couple dozen items everyday that have one restriction or another on them, and taking time to answer conditionals on them would be unnecessarily time consuming.   I rarely am surprised about which items come restricted to Library Use Only - its old, its fragile, there are few lenders, its genealogy, microfilm or deals with UFOs - and what does surprise me is  that libraries were willing to lend the material under any circumstances.  For which I am grateful, and thank you.


Laura Barnard
Interlibrary Loans
Seattle Public Library (UOK)
206-386-4601
ill at spl.org

>>> "Beth Lubar" <nostupidquestions at gmail.com> 11/21/2007 6:34 AM >>>
Hello All -

Just wondering what most ILL folks do on this topic.  If you're going to
lend for "in library use only" do you conditional first - or just send with
a "in library use only" instruction.
Are there a lot of libraries that do NOT accept 'in library use only' loans?

Thanks all for your participation &
HAPPY THANKGIVING

-- 
~ Whoever said there are no stupid questions never worked a reference desk ~