[ILL-L] USING THE CONDITIONAL

[Nancy Bode]

Agree.  It's frustrating if the previous libraries merely respond "no" and do not use the conditional option.  The other thing that also happens:
 
You send a conditional ... "check citation" -- I'll even do some research and explain further what may be likely, for example, "you're using the wrong bib record, try #1234567," or whatever -- and they respond back "yes, I accept" with no changes/corrections.  I then answer "no."  Yep, I could do more -- contact the borrowing library by email or phone -- but, sorry, I put in the effort and I can't help it if the borrowing library goofs or doesn't know what they're doing.
 
Nancy Bode
Parkland College Library
Champaign, IL
www.parkland.edu/library 

>>> "Breedlove, W Stephen" <breedlov at lasalle.edu> 10/22/2009 5:50 PM >>>

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



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