[ILL-L] USING THE CONDITIONAL

[Breedlove, W Stephen]

The people that should see this message are probably not on this list.

Please conditional a request that has an incorrect citation.  Don't say NO and let it go to the next library who will spend time on it needlessly.

Yesterday, we processed two requests that had bad citations.  We were the last library in the five-symbol string on both requests.  

What appalled me about the above two requests was that the first library must have seen that they were bad citations, said NO, the second library saw they were bad citations, said NO, the third library saw that they were bad citations, said NO, the fourth library saw that they were bad citations, said NO, and they came to us, the fifth library.  We spent time on the requests, saw that they were bad citations and set the requests to CONDITIONAL indicating "check citation."  If the first library had done this, a lot of staff time at four other libraries would not have been wasted.

This happens quite frequently.  It is rude and inconsiderate of your ILL colleagues.


W. Stephen Breedlove
Reference and Interlibrary Loan Librarian
La Salle University Library
breedlov at lasalle.edu
215-951-1862