Interlibrary Loan Best Practices Guide

1. Best Practices for Interlibrary Loan Borrowing and Lending Prepared for the Delaware Statewide ILL Meeting June 23, 2009 Megan Gaffney Coordinator, Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services University of Delaware Library gaffneym@udel.edu

2. Some Reasons to Consider Best Practices • Follow state and national guidelines for Interlibrary Loan services • Build good partnerships with other libraries • Provide consistent excellent service to local users and other libraries • Protect materials during shipping and use

3. Borrowing Best Practices: Placing Requests • Verify holdings! • Use OCLC tools to research potential libraries • WorldCat.org is accessible by any web browser and is free. • The lending library’s OPAC will provide holdings and/or call number information. • Check for circulation status and other restrictions, like Special Collections.

4. Borrowing Best Practices: Placing Requests, continued • Provide a complete citation • Google is the BFF of ILL! (Jennifer Kuehn, Ohio State University Libraries) • Google is also the BFF of ILL’s patrons: many of them are getting their request citations by Googling, even if those citations are bad ones. • Collaboration with reference or other librarians is key: use the best tools available to track down materials. • If you couldn’t find the article as a lender because the citation is incomplete, neither can we.

5. Borrowing Best Practices: Restrictions • All materials are subject to recall and must be returned promptly if recalled. • All restrictions, like “library use only” and “no photocopying” must be followed as stated either in communication prior to the item’s shipment or on the item’s accompanying paperwork. • If the lender specifies a return shipping method, it must be honored.

6. Borrowing Best Practices: Renewals • Ask for renewals before the due date • Avoid policy snags: not all libraries will renew once the original due date has passed. • Renewal requests are a form of good communication: if a borrower asks for a renewal promptly and the lender grants it, the lender doesn’t spend time chasing after overdue materials. • In requesting an item, borrowers are agreeing to follow *all* the lender’s restrictions. No renewals means no renewals, and the material must be returned on time.

7. Borrowing Best Practices: Rush Requests • If a library does not support rush requests, don’t ask. • Sending a request in multiple forms (on OCLC, then by fax to say “please pay attention to this rush request”) may be more confusing than helpful. • ILL-L listserv is a great way to find a library to help with your rush request, and only those libraries who can support rush service will chime in to offer assistance. • Don’t request a rush as a borrower if you would not be able to supply a rush as a lender.

8. Borrowing Best Practices: Communication • Providing email addresses to lenders is a must, whenever possible • Articles requested for your patrons will come through faster and at higher quality through email instead of fax. • Overdues, recalls, and other status information will be transmitted faster and more efficiently for both borrower and lender. • In using the University of Delaware ILL system as a borrower, email communication will be linked to and visible from your account online – no need to rely on your inbox for that information.

9. Borrowing Best Practices: Who’s Responsible for Borrowed Material? • The borrowing library is always responsible from start to finish. • [A requesting library will] “assume responsibility for borrowed material from the time it leaves the supplying library until it has been returned to and received by the supplying library. This includes all material shipped directly to and/or returned by the user. If damage or loss occurs, provide compensation or replacement, in accordance with the preference of the supplying library.” (ALA Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States, 2008) • Borrowers must pay for lost or damaged material; if not for that request, the material would be safe and sound in the lender’s library. • Replacement copies may be acceptable, but must be approved by someone at the lender’s institution prior to purchasing and sending.

10. Borrowing Best Practices: Who’s Responsible, continued • Even items lost in the mail must be paid or replaced by the borrowing library. • Lender may send an item by a trackable service; if the tracking proves that the material is lost, then they can file a claim with the shipper. Otherwise, the borrower pays for replacement. • Check the lender’s online catalog and request a shelf check before paying a replacement bill. Mistakes sometimes happen. • If the user loses or damages an item while checked out, then the borrowing library may transfer the lender’s fees or replacement purchase responsibilities to the user, in accordance with local policy and practice.

11. Borrowing Best Practices: Care of Materials • Never apply adhesive material to another library’s item, even if your library uses labels on its own materials. • Do not repair another library’s material without permission. The lender might have in-house preservation staff that prefer to repair damaged spines, ripped or missing pages, etc. • An exception: if a user returns a book wet, dry it off before shipping it back to the lending library for further care. • When in doubt about another library’s materials, call their ILL staff and ask how to handle a situation.

12. Lending Best Practices: Communication Again • When cancelling a request, provide specific reasons for no, following the standard OCLC reasons whenever possible. See the list of reasons for no provided by Lyrasis if guidelines are needed. • Don’t over-communicate! Calling a borrower to supply information or to apologize is not necessary, especially if more lenders are out there – just say no if you can’t fill the request. • Make due dates and use restrictions clear – doing so is the best way to ensure that the borrower will abide by them.

13. Lending Best Practices: Shipping • Use appropriate packaging materials and adhesive according to U.S. Postal Service and UPS guidelines. Copper staples are not recommended; packing tape is. • Some materials are too large or heavy for padded envelopes and will rip right through them. Box these items. • Ensure that you have a complete address and an appropriate address for the shipping method. UPS will not ship to a P.O. box; many libraries invent a shipping address (“1 Library Lane,” for example) to ensure that UPS deliveries go smoothly.

14. Resource Sharing and Expertise Sharing • Collaborate with other librarians and staff at your library! • Reference staff can help with tricky citations. • Circulation may help keep track of books that are coming and going. • Preservation can provide expertise on dealing with damaged items. • Catalogers maintain local records, and OCLC records, if applicable. • IT staff can help with online webforms, document delivery software, etc.

15. Resource Sharing and Expertise Sharing • Next, collaborate with colleagues at other libraries. • The ILL community is full of librarians and library staff who help each other with citation verification, supplying hard-to-find materials, and sharing technical expertise every day. • Sometimes a quick email or phone call is the best way to resolve a problem request or sticky situation.

16. Resource Sharing and Expertise Sharing • Tools to communicate with colleagues and stay current: • ILL-L listserv - http://lists.webjunction.org/mailman/listinfo/ill-l • ShareILL wiki - http://www.shareill.org • OCLC WebJunction Resource Sharing community – “Facebook for ILL librarians” - http://resourcesharing.webjunction.org/   • ALA RUSA STARS - http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/sections/stars/index.cfm

17. Future Considerations • Using ILL software like Clio, OCLC WorldCat Resource Sharing, or ILLiad will help automate processes as borrower and lender. • Consider Odyssey document delivery software, which can be downloaded and installed for free at http://www.atlas-sys.com/products/odyssey/ • Odyssey Standalone FAQ from Ohio State University - https://osu.illiad.oclc.org/illiad/osu/lending/odysseyfaq.html • Buying instead of borrowing is a growing trend in resource sharing, either through a book vendor on OCLC or through sources like Amazon.com. • Commercial document suppliers like the British Library Document Supply Centre are useful, particularly for academic libraries.

18. Guidelines and Best Practices for Interlibrary Loan • ALA Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States, 2008 revision - http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/resources/guidelines/interlibrary.cfm • ALA Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States, supplement - http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/resources/guidelines/interlibraryloancode.cfm • IFLA International Lending and Document Delivery - http://archive.ifla.org/VI/2/p3/ildd.htm • Slides and handouts from RUSA STARS “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about ILL” workshop at ALA Midwinter 2009 - http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/sections/stars/publications/index.cfm • Boucher, Virginia. Interlibrary Loan Practices Handbook. Chicago: American Library Association, 1997. Third edition forthcoming.

19. Comments or Questions? Megan GaffneyCoordinator, Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery ServicesUniversity of Delaware Librarygaffneym@udel.edu302-831-6980http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/ill/