[ILL-L] Managing ILL duties

Wed Jan 23 09:57:15 EST 2008

The Jacksonville Public Library is a large library system, consisting of
a 300,000 sq. ft. Main Library and twenty Branch libraries (
(Nine Regional Branch Libraries, seven Community Branch Libraries,four
Neighborhood Branch Libraries )in Jacksonville, FL. We also serve the
needs of the community with Talking Books Library and an active adult
literacy program.  I manage Special Services which encompasses ILL and
Books By Mail.  A few years ago, the head of Special Services also
managed Talking Books and the manager's main focus was Talking Books.
ILL was left to the clerical staff and -luckily- the workload was low.
As was the fill rate.  When I took over a few years ago, the system was
in the midst of a massive renovation and building program. Last fiscal
year, we received 23,603 Lending requests and filled 16,143.  We sent
12,059 requests from our customers - of which we sent 9747 to other
libraries and received 9415.  Last year our Lending fills went up 10%
and our Borrowing fills went up 54%. We use deflection for AV and for
books published in the current calendar year and every day we bless all
those intrepid OCLC staffers who came up with the concept and made it
so.  

I spend most of my time on ILL. In the 4+ years I've been in here, the
focus of the job has switched to more computer oriented, more statistics
gathering, more collection development oriented, in-house staff ILL
training, and more everyday hands on.  My staff and I also cover the
library's call center an hour a week and serve on system committees and
task forces.  I have a clerk who is in charge of Borrowing, a clerk in
charge of Lending, and a clerk who helps with Borrowing requests,
handles Lending overdues, handles the financial end of ILL (submitting
checks to Finance, payroll), and handles supplies for our department and
another.  We have a 21/hour a week clerk who helps with Borrowing and
Lending check-in. We all handle Books By Mail requests.  The unseen
"member" of the ILL team is the public service staff at Main and the
branches who search the shelves for Lending fills as well as searching
within microfilm, and bound periodicals and photocopying requests; we
cannot do our job without their assistance. The Main Library collection
fills between 65-70% of Lending fills.  The branches fill the remainder.
The building and renovation program  created a diverse collection and
the branches own some titles that Main does not; delivery from branches
takes more time so we can only ask them to fill Lending requests where
JPL has been entered twice consecutively in the Lenders string.  The
incentive for the public service staff to fill Lending requests is that
their Fill Rates are part of their Performance Measurements.  I gather a
lot of statistics daily for these measurements; it takes me a half day
to do the monthly report.  When I first came to ILL, my predecessor said
I "would not have to do anything in ILL; the clerks would handle it all"
which turned out absolutely, positively NOT to be the case.  I fill in
where needed when staff is out on leave or in training.  This month is
always busy for us, especially in Lending; I help search ILL Lending
requests on a daily basis.

We do -from time to time- have volunteers.  Because of Florida library
privacy laws, we are very careful about what we give them to do.  They
mostly help compile Books By Mail packets.

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

________________________________

From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Margolin, Amy S.
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 12:58 PM
To: Interlibrary Loan Listserv
Subject: RE: [ILL-L] Managing ILL duties

We're a medium sized public library, and last year we loaned 7138 items
out of 16,669 requests. We also borrowed 5242 items and requested 7641.
We loan free 
to everyone and loan all AV.  I work full time, about 90% of the time in
ILL.  I have one 25 hour clerk and two aides, each of whom work about 15
hours/wk.  One aide handles the packaging for mail and the other sorts
and bags everything as part of our corsortial arrangement with a
statewide resource sharing program.  Those two 
aides have only been in our department about a year.
As for volunteers,  well, we've got a union and that sort of arrangement
would not fly.

amy margolin 
resource sharing coordinator 
greene county public library 
76 e market st 
p.o. box 520 
xenia, ohio 45385-5200 
amargolin at gcpl.lib.oh.us 
937-352-4000x1236 
www.greenelibrary.info 

________________________________

From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of DiAnn M. Kilburg
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 12:07 PM
To: Interlibrary Loan Listserv; shonden at gmail.com
Subject: RE: [ILL-L] Managing ILL duties

I've read with great interest all of the response to managing ILL duties
and I would like to ask any more responders to put the information
regarding the size of their institutions so I can do some comparisons.
Thanks

DiAnn Kilburg

From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Andrea Craley
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 8:36 AM
To: ill-l at webjunction.org; shonden at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [ILL-L] Managing ILL duties

January 18, 2008

Hi there,

My experience will be similar to other responses so far.

I am a full-time Library Technician (degreed Librarian) in charge of ILL
at Harford Community College Library. I specifically do all the ILL
borrowing, and another full-time Library Technician in Tech Services
does all the ILL lending. I help to supervise the ILL lending, train her
on updates, field questions, etc. She is however also cross-trained to
do ILL borrowing, and takes care of that in the event that I am away
(for instance, I was on maternity leave last April through June). And I
also do ILL lending when she may be out for any reason.

As others mentioned, most of our full-time Technical Services Library
Technicians are cross-trained in other duties. ILL is only one thing I
do - I also staff the Digital Library Desk and Reference Desk and have
hours on Maryland AskUsNow virtual reference, I manage and supervise the
processing of our Government Documents, catalog Gov Docs and other
materials as assigned, and teach Information Literacy classes. Since I
accepted additional duties, this was the main reason ILL lending was
given to a colleague (I used to do both before I accrued more duties).
My colleague who does ILL lending also staffs the Circulation Desk,
catalogs Reserve materials, catalogs continuations and other materials
as assigned. In some cases where my additional duties are my focus and I
may not be able to get to ILL borrowing, my colleage does help me with
ILL borrowing requests if she is not busy. In cases of more specialized
and difficult searches though on the borrowing side, I usually handle
those (the Reference Librarian in me digs until I reach an absoulte dead
end!) We do all our Interlibrary Loan through WorldCat Resource Sharing
via FirstSearch. We accept borrowing request via the Review File in
FirstSearch (submitted either by the patron or by the Reference
Librarian for the patron), through our HCC Library webapge ILL request
page (comes into an ILL email we both check), through direct email to
either of us, through paper forms submitted to Reference Desk (just a
few this way anymore), through fax, or through personal phone call to
either of us (I've got a county resident who calls me periodically to
try to "stump me" with special research requests). We accept lending
requests via WRS/FirstSearch Pending file, emails from Libraries to the
ILL email or either of our emails, through fax, through mail (if anyone
still uses ALA form), or phone calls to either of us from Libraries.

Doing both ILL borrowing and lending became too much for me as I
accepted additional duties after I got my MLS. Cross-training is
important however as others have said, in case of emergencies and time
off. Most of us in Techncial Services staff several service desks and
have several duties. My ILL colleague and I don't have other staff other
students pull materials or requests for us, or do the shipping for ILL.
It's just 2 of us doing all the processing work for ILL borrowing and
ILL lending.

Hope that helps!

Andie Craley

Harford Community College Library ILL (HAR)

Andie Craley, MS/ILS
Library Technician - Specialist IV
Government Documents
Interlibrary Loan Borrowing Contact
Harford Community College Library
401 Thomas Run Road
Bel Air, MD 21015-1698
PHONE:  410-836-4000, Ext. # 7143
FAX:  410-836-4137
EMAIL:  acraley at harford.edu

>>> "D. Phillips" <shonden at gmail.com> 1/18/2008 3:24 AM >>>

Hi,

I'm hoping someone will be able to answer my question. I am the sole
interlibrary loan clerk at my library. Until recently, this had not been
a problem. We used to charge our patrons a fee to place a request.
Because of this, not many patrons made requests. Last December our
director decided to change the our policy and make EVERY aspect of
interlibrary loan FREE. Well, needless to say, now that everything is
free, ILL request have increased beyond my ability to handle them alone.
So now I'm going to have another staff member help me with this. What I
need to know is how do other libraries divide the responsibilities of
interlibrary loan between multiple staff? I have the impression that in
some libraries certain staff does borrowing only while other staff does
lending only. Being so use to doing them both I'm not quite sure of how
to separate the different duties of the job or even if I should.  

Your help is very appreciated.

D.P. 

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