[ILL-L] Unfilled request numbers

[Megan Bayonet]

We have rather high unfilled numbers due to the electronic journal databases
that we subscribe to.  With tens of thousands of titles, it's simply
impractical for our cataloger (or me!) to try and put in the subscription
dates - especially as they change constantly at the whim of publisher and
database provider.  While staff do spend time looking for holders of a
specific item, I've never found that to be a humongous part of my day - we
set up some pretty good custom holdings and are able to use the suggestions
that WRS makes based on those custom holdings groups.  

The only real solution that I have is to make sure that we always have a
Reason for No when we reject a request and I try to be as specific as
possible with these.  

Megan Bayonet
Interlibrary Loan Coordinator
mbayonet at mbc.edu
540-887-7317

-----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."


_______________________________________________
ILL-L mailing list
ILL-L at webjunction.org
http://lists.webjunction.org/mailman/listinfo/ill-l