[ILL-L] WorldCat Resource Sharing

[Bell.Jacobsen at state.sd.us]

Cindi,

 

The South Dakota State Library in Pierre, SD like a lot of other State
Libraries around the country has dispersed most of it's popular and
fiction collection.  We still acquire materials that have SD as the main
subject but no fiction.  We also have Federal/State publications, a
"Librarian" reference and Native American (SD) collection that
circulates.  We have some periodicals in paper, microfiche and
microfilm.

 

We no longer directly serve individuals in our state.  We now
exclusively serve libraries, State and Federal employees.  Also, a lot
of the libraries in SD are also members of our statewide ALEPH subsystem
on which they can order materials for themselves.  Another service that
is available in our state is the "Research Databases" which includes
journals and magazines available to all school, public and academic
libraries.  This brings us to our workload which is not as heavy as it
once was.  Consequently, all the options that you listed in your inquiry
are not as overwhelming as they were about two years ago.  

 

I can say that WorldCat does seem to help us manage our out-of-state
borrowing in an effective manner.  It would be great to have ILLIAD but
I really don't see our Administration choosing this option (never say
never) since we are trying to find ways to save and budget with the
fewer dollars we have.  I do think that if we were to have ILLIAD that
we would have to be down to maybe one (1) staff person in our ILL
Department to justify the cost.  When we do have to pay for an item on
OCLC which is very rare since we belong to MINITEX, it seems to me that
it's much easier to pay with the IFM option than when we get billed
because of less people handling of the invoice.  Also, the archiving of
all requests on OCLC make it easy to look for information when a patron
inquires about their request.  When we get overdues/bills from the lack
of non return of materials, I usually forward these to the libraries by
email and the response is quick.  So, it's really great that libraries
are emailing overdues/invoices when possible.   However, WorldCat does
not allow for set up of easy routing rules to perform the tasks that you
listed in your email.  We don't have automatic upgrades on WorldCat.
The old PRISM had more ways to perform automated (keystrokes) tasks than
WorldCat does.  We also have to call our BIT personnel to update
anything that has to do with the hard drive on our computers.

 

All in all though, with the workload that we have now I do think that
WorldCat works fine for us.      

 

These are my thoughts and not my Administrations.

 

 

Bellen M Jacobsen 
South Dakota State Library 
800 Governors Drive 
Pierre SD 57501-2294 
605-773-5068 
1-800-423-6665 (in SD only) 
605-773-6962 (Fax) 
bell.jacobsen at state.sd.us 

-----Original Message-----
From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Chappell, Cyndi, JCL
Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 11:29 AM
To: Interlibrary Loan Listserv
Subject: RE: [ILL-L] WorldCat Resource Sharing

 

Hi Bellen,

 

We're a public library looking into options that might be more cost
effective, that would be more compatible with SIRSI, that would allow us
to set up easy routing rules (like current year requests getting sent
into a collections consideration queue, article requests sent to
copyright clearance queue, etc.), easy management of billing/invoices,
automatic upgrades (we're hosted with ILLiad, and it's a pain to upgrade
because our IT folks have to be involved), and little limitation on
number of staff authorized access to it.  

Looking at the above wish list, does this sound like what you get with
WorldCat?  What are the negatives you've found with it?

 

Thanks for your input!

 

Cyndi

 

 

From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of
Bell.Jacobsen at state.sd.us
Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 10:29 AM
To: ill-l at webjunction.org
Subject: RE: [ILL-L] WorldCat Resource Sharing

 

We use WorldCat for out-of-state ILL and emergency (when in-state goes
down) backup.  It works great.  

 

 

Bellen M Jacobsen 
South Dakota State Library 
800 Governors Drive 
Pierre SD 57501-2294 
605-773-5068 
1-800-423-6665 (in SD only) 
605-773-6962 (Fax) 
bell.jacobsen at state.sd.us 

-----Original Message-----
From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Chappell, Cyndi, JCL
Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 10:11 AM
To: ill-l at webjunction.org
Subject: [ILL-L] WorldCat Resource Sharing

 

Hello.  Does anyone use WorldCat for their ILL management system?  We're
currently using ILLiad, but researching other options.  If you use
WorldCat, I'd love to ask you some questions about it.

 

Thanks,

 

Cyndi Chappell

Johnson County Library

 

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