Coffman and ILL

[Kim Lord]

Hello all,

That seems to be a common problem, patrons just not being aware of the
services that are available to them and it doesn't seem to be from lack of
trying on our part, at least in this smallish public library.  Patrons are
generally always informed that material can be requested from elsewhere.
But this is where the trouble starts....most people are going to want to
know when they can expect to pick up there book, and even though we can
usually have a request made before the patron has left the building, the
best we can do is give them an in the ballpark estimate as to when a book
could actually be in waiting for them.  In this day and age, people don't
want "a week to ten days".  Patrons can use their library cards in any
public library in the state so having to wait is not their only option.

The other issue here is one of politics and control, I fear.  A few years
back I chaired a committee of inter library loan librarians and the
question came up patron initiated ill.  Example.....patron calls the
reference desk of a neighboring town and requests that a book be put in the
ill box to be delivered to his home town library.  The nearly immediate
consensus was there is no way that can happen because why should/would a
patron "circumvent" the system, and no material should be going out of the
building without it going past the ill person. I'm still not sure what that
means and quite frankly I was surprised the first concern wasn't the
possibility of the all important statistics no longer being  accurate.  It
was pointed out that if that out of town people are going in and out of our
libraries all the time  The other statement that concerned me was something
to the effect that if we make things that easy, patrons are going to what
even more.  The example used to illustrate this concern was a patron from
town A, asking for material from the library in town B to be sent to the
library in town C where he happens to work.  Personally, I don't think this
is an unreasonable request, but this patron would still have to use his
home town library as the point to initiate the request and to pick up the
material when it came in regardless of whether or not it was convenient for
him.  

Even with the understanding of reciprocity, we will loan to you if you loan
to us, there is still the question of funding and appearances.   It seems
to be a safe assumption that most materials budgets are stretched and
losing "control" over a certain amount of a library's collection...this
seems to be at least part the stumbling block.  

Coffman is probably on to something, trends that have worked well in the
business world ought not be automatically discounted because it's just too
different from what we are used to.  

That's my two cents....


Kim Lord
Kent Memorial Library
Suffield CT.