[ILL-L] Unfilled request numbers

[Document Delivery]

Our percentage is 70-80%, for the same reasons, it's always low. Things
checked out, on reserve, etc. I think ideally if you aren't going to
lend a collection, you might deflect it in OCLC, if you can, Ed. 


Edward Helmrich
ILL Office
Ryan Library
Iona College VXI
914-633-2352 
docdelivery at iona.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Shuping
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 11:04 AM
To: Interlibrary Loan Listserv
Subject: [ILL-L] Unfilled request numbers

Hi all,

I'm looking for some information and wondering what everyone else does
regarding unfilled lending requests (requests that we aren't filling as
lenders).  Our numbers always seem really high for unfilleds.  For
example for July we had 202 requests, but we only filled 112 of them.
It's been about 30%-40% unfilled for the last few months.

Some of this stems from collections we don't lend but are loaded into
OCLC.  For example we have Special Collection records uploaded and Media
Center items, none of which we lend.  We also have 3 Center libraries
that are cataloged under our symbol, but we don't lend from any of those
collections.  We keep adding material to these collections and all of
them are uploaded to OCLC.  I can easily auto-deflect the media items,
but it still counts toward unfilleds.

I dislike having that many unfilled requests because I know it costs
staff time to find libraries that own the item, only to have them not be
able to fill it.  So I'm looking for some advice.  Are my numbers
normal?  How do you handle collections that you can't lend?  Do you put
them on OCLC?  Do you catalog them under a separate symbol on OCLC?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!


--
Andrew Shuping

Robert Frost - "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned
about life: it goes on."


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