[ILL-L] RE: OCLC SEARCHING

[Susan Morris]

One thing to keep in mind....

If cataloging decisions were stringently mandated in OCLC without local control or customs coming into play, then perhaps happily for ILL the end result would be that custom holdings would appear on every serial title and every serial title would be on a separate record according to format. 

However, this is not necessarily the case; some libraries (I'm not talking about my own library in particular)  made decisions "way back when" about how to handle e-journals before it became apparent that they would  become a fixture in our landscape (not saying this is bad or good, stupid or smart--it is just what was going on back then--some libraries looked on cataloging e-journals as an "experiment").

I agree that ILL should not be a crap shoot, but as with anything that has to do with automation, your search results (locations and custom holdings) are only as good as the accuracy of your data. So, in some libraries, cataloging decisions may have been made regarding how to treat the paper vs. the online version of journal titles without consequences for ILL being taken into consideration. This is unfortunate, but it happens. 

So this is why my ILL department decided to not deflect-- we want to make sure that we've looked at all options before we say "no" to a request (I will add that using ILLiad has cut our turnaround time drastically in general, and when we do get requests that can be filled by accessing an online journal, we generally can fill it in minutes to a couple of hours. This has been especially good for the Science titles the paper version of which is housed in another building etc. etc.).

T.G.I.F.,
Susan Morris(GUA) 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Breedlove, W Stephen 
  To: Interlibrary Loan Listserv 
  Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:02 PM
  Subject: [ILL-L] RE: OCLC SEARCHING


  List members,

  The responses to my posting on Nov 4 on OCLC SEARCHING were interesting.  Some folks understood the point I was trying to make; some didn't.  I will say a few more things and then shut up about it.

  My point had nothing to do with licensing agreements, or meanly blocking other libraries from obtaining articles from us.  My point was about performing effective searching in OCLC so that you obtain what you need as quickly as possible.  Unless I've missed something in my almost 22 years and counting of working and supervising in interlibrary loan and document delivery, the purpose of all this is to obtain materials for our patrons as quickly as possible.  Currently, here at La Salle we are obtaining many articles on the same day that we request them--thanks to those wonderful libraries with whom we participate in Rapid ILL--and Rapid does the looking up for you!  Even through OCLC, we receive items much faster than in the past.

  When I say "online journal" I mean online versions of journals that are also published in print.  I don't mean journals that are only published online.  That's another ballgame.  If you request an article on the OCLC record for the print version of a journal, find out what libraries hold the vol/year that your article is in by clicking on your Custom Holdings--you know what Custom Holdings is, don't you?--set up your lender string, and then produce your request, you have a much, much better chance of getting your article than using the OCLC record for the online version of the journal.  We were receiving tons of requests coming to us every day on records for online versions of journals when, in many cases, the online journal wasn't available to us for the vol/issue that was needed.  If a library holds an online version of a journal, and you have submitted a request for an article on the record for the print version, more than likely that library will fill from the online version, instead of scanning from the print issue.

  Interlibrary loan shouldn't be a crap shoot.

  W. Stephen Breedlove
  Reference Librarian/Interlibrary Loan Coordinator
  Connelly Library, La Salle University



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