[ILL-L] Waiting lists for libraries that want to borrow from our collection (popular titles).

[Bierma, Lynn]

I'm curious to know whether you have a waiting list policy at your library....not just for our own patrons, but for other libraries that are requesting from your collection.  We have a few books that we can't keep on the shelves.  The books are not widely held.  On a trial basis I established a wait list for those libraries who have asked to be on it.  For those books that are on the wait list, no renewals are allowed, and I limited the list itself to 5 libraries at a time.  However, with a 4 week loan period it the 5th library's patron would be waiting quite a while.  For the most part is working out alright, however, we've run into a couple of problems.   I feel we're wasting a lot of our time contacting libraries and then waiting for their responses.  I'm beginning to feel that just indicating "no - in use/on loan" is the right thing to do, and if the borrowing library's patron want it badly enough, they'l try again.

Are there any other libraries out ther that have tried this?  

Thanks for your responses.

Lynn Bierma
ILL Operations Coordinator
IL State Library
300 South 2nd St.
Springfield, IL 62701
PHONE: 217-558-1928
FAX: 217-782-4446
EMAIL: lbierma at ilsos.net

Jesse White, Secretary of State and State Librarian
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