[ILL-L] question for the ILL historians among us

[Campbell, Heather]

In the early 80's - in Florida, anyway - it worked this way:

*	Florida libraries would send ILL requests to the State Library.
*	The State Library would send requests to the 5 Florida Resource
Centers in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville.
Requests were sent to these libraries WITHOUT checking holdings records
for the Resource Centers.
*	The Resource Centers would look up the books in their card
catalogs and pull them from their shelves.  Resource Centers would then
answer the requests in order of whatever the rotation was that month by
typing in the item numbers of the titles they could provide.  As one set
of answers came in, the Resource Centers would mark the provided titles
off their copies of the list.  If the order was Miami, Fort Lauderdale,
Orlando, Tampa, then Jacksonville, Jacksonville would have to wait until
Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Tampa had all answered what they
could provide before they answered. The next month, Jacksonville would
get to answer first.  Then, the Resource Centers would mail the books to
the requesting libraries.

 

Of course, I was a mere (albeit literate) infant when I worked with
this.  It was VERY labor intensive and there was A LOT of wasted effort
involved what with wasting time looking up items you didn't own and then
having to put books back you pulled because another Resource Center had
filled it before your turn came.  The teletype was noisy and
headache-inducing. Customers complained about the noise it produced.
The State Library abandoned the teletype after I promoted out of ILL in
favor of OCLC ILL.  I missed out on the presumably wild celebration.

 

 

Heather Campbell - who is not nostalgic at all, at all.

Manager- Special Services (Interlibrary Loan and Books by Mail)

Jacksonville Public Library (JPL)

303 North Laura Street

Jacksonville, FL 32202-3505 heatherc at coj.net  (904) 630-2986

 

________________________________

From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Heather Clark
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 2:43 PM
To: ill-l at webjunction.org
Subject: [ILL-L] question for the ILL historians among us

 

For those who have "rich experience" in resource sharing-I'm looking for
a brief explanation of the teletype (?) exchange of ILL requests prior
to online access to union lists. Just a couple of sentences is
sufficient. Hopefully, it will stir some pleasant nostalgia for days
gone by :-)

 

TYIA

 

_____________________

Heather Clark

Member Services Librarian

BCR 

14394 E. Evans Ave.

Aurora, CO 80220

303-751-6277 (voice)

303-751-9787 (fax)

800-397-1552 (toll free)

 

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