[ILL-L] Direct Requesting

Fri May 29 11:58:05 EDT 2009

Hi,

I am using Direct Request more and more to try to save staff time here at 
the ILL office.  I have set up a Direct Request profile for books older than 
a year old but not older than 100 years old and also for CDs.  I have set up 
special holdings paths for use by the Direct Requests profiles so that each 
goes only to free libraries that I think loan that format, but stop before 
they get to the charging ones.  I did that because there often are free list 
me twice libraries that I might want to use before I go to charging ones.  I 
also set up the profile so it will only work if there are at least five 
potential lenders.  It always irks me to get a lending request with only my 
symbol listed only one time.  I always think it's a good idea to fill up 
your lender string.  If there is only one potential lender, I put them in 
five times.  It gives them extra time, in case they are overworked (who 
isn't!) and sends a message that you are fairly desperate.  I'd be glad to 
talk to anyone who has other questions.

Sue Kaler
Interlibrary Loan Supervisor
Wellesley Free Library
530 Washington Street
Wellesley, MA 02482
OCLC symbol MLN
skaler at minlib.net
voice (781)235-1610 x1112, fax (781)237-4875

When responding, please be advised that the Town of Wellesley has 
determined that email could be considered a public record.

-----Original Message-----
From: Denise L Montgomery <dmontgom at valdosta.edu>
To: Interlibrary Loan Listserv <ill-l at webjunction.org>
Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 11:35:54 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [ILL-L] Direct Requesting

The secret of successful Direct Request is how you set up your 
profiles. I have set mine up so it deflects anything that is held  
within our state, because otherwise the system is too likely to 
automatically send to the big places before sending to any of the 
smaller libraries within the state. Also, make sure you put down what 
you are willing to pay--or not pay--for each patron group.
And finally, in order not to have a lot of unmediated requests going 
out for textbooks used in current classes, I set up the student profile 
so it does not do  Direct Request for any books published within the 
last two years. That also takes care of bestseller type items that we 
probably should be ordering for the collection instead, because they 
come to my attention promptly instead of wasting other people's time 
going out as ILL requests. 

And one other thing: set it up for books only. Again, you don't want to 
waste other people's time by sending out unmediated requests for media 
to places that don't loan.

After you've done all that, you will probably find that you aren't 
processing a lot of things via Direct Request, but it will take a few 
requests off your hands.

I'm sure other people have different strategies for how they've set up 
their profiles, but to my way that's the surest way of avoiding some of 
the "problems" that you're thinking about.

                                Denise Montgomery 
                                Valdosta State University Library

Sarah McHone-Chase wrote:

>Hello, 
>
>Our institution is considering Directing Requesting. I'd be interested 
in hearing from other institutions who are doing this. Has anyone 
experienced any major problems?
>
> 
>
>Sarah M. McHone-Chase
>Information Delivery Services Librarian
>Founders Memorial Library 127
>Northern Illinois University 
>DeKalb, IL 60115-2868
>Telephone: (815) 753-9860
>Fax: (815) 753-2003
>mchonechase at niu.edu
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>ILL-L mailing list
>ILL-L at webjunction.org
>http://lists.webjunction.org/mailman/listinfo/ill-l
>
>

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