TU Librarian in Training

I usually explain Interlibrary Loans as “If I don’t have what you need, I can probably have it for you in a week.” Okay, so this does not explain the ins and outs and the laborious procedures that have to take place for me to get things for you. So, let’s get into a little bit more detail.

Wikipedia defines Interlibrary Loan as: a service whereby a user of one library can borrow books, videos, DVDs, sound recordings, microfilms, or receive photocopies of articles in magazines that are owned by another library. Sometimes for a small fee, or possibly for no cost, a library that has the item will loan or copy it, and the item is transported to the requestor’s library to be checked out or used only within the library. Policies vary about whether the user is charged for the request.

Generally, the term document delivery means more specifically the supply of journal articles and other copies on a personalized basis, with the library charging the user or his academic department for the fees that are often involved.

Without interlibrary loans, if a library patron found an item they wanted, he or she would have to travel to that library, and apply for a local library card if eligible, or present a reciprocal card in order to borrow the item. By taking advantage of interlibrary loan, in comparison, the library staff can search large numbers of libraries at once, transport the item from several miles to thousands of miles away, and allow a patron to borrow the item using his or her local library card.

To request Interlibrary Loan materials, visit the TU Library website at http://lib.thomasu.edu:8080/index.html. Click the Interlibrary Loan link or the Other Libraries link and you should get a form to fill out that goes directly to my email account. If the materials that you are requesting are available at the Thomas County Public Library, I will not request them for you. In this case it becomes your responsibility to go there to check the materials out (but I will let you know that you can find it there!).

At the Thomas University Library, I use a system called FirstSearch, which operates as a unit of OCLC’s WorldCat. When something is requested, I search through these systems to find a library that has the item you requested. I check first for libraries within our state and then within our region, and as far out as nation-wide when that is what it takes to get your materials. I try to find libraries that do not charge to share materials, because if they charge it becomes the responsibility of the patron to pay these fees. I like to keep things free!

Then, I pick five libraries to request the materials from. The request goes to the first library on the list first, and if they ship it, it doesn’t go to the other libraries. However, if they say no, it goes to the next library and so on, until someone says yes we have it and yes we will share it with you, and they send it out. Articles can be emailed, mailed, or faxed, and books ship usually UPS or USPS.

I will not get into the vast amount of paper work and the communications that must go on between to two libraries involved in an interlibrary loan (you have to communicate when the item shipped, when it arrived, when it sent to the patron, when it came back, when it shipped out again, and when it made it back home). It complicated, but it gets my patrons what they need, and that part, I love.

So welcome to the world of being able to access just about any information that you need. This is part of what I hope that our patrons (mostly students) will get out of this blog. I know that when you come into our library that it isn’t the most high tech academic library around, and our books are old, and our selection isn’t great, but you aren’t limited to that mentality of “what you see is what you get.” The amount of material that you can access through the internet, and more importantly-through your librarians, is practically limitless. Believe it or not, our little library has become what is known as a hybrid library. This means that we are part traditional library and part digital library. Both of these halves of this identity are vastly important. Being traditional means that we have materials that you can get your hands on immediately. We have back issues of the periodicals that we subscribe to, we have a reference collection (which is soon to be updated, we hope), and a decent collection of circulating materials. On the digital end, we provide you with access to close to 300 online databases, computers, online catalogs, and a library website (and now my blog!). So, don’t underestimate what you have here in this little library!