Three cheers for ILL
Posted by watsonlibrary on March 19, 2007
Reblogged from Gypsy Librarian (among other blogs):
The Chronicle of Higher Education featured an article written by Susanna Ashton, entitled “What Goes Around,” on the use of Interlibrary Loan. ILL is a service that most faculty pretty much take for granted; they don’t even think about the costs, which the libraries usually absorb on their behalf. Personally, I know I am glad when the nice ladies that work ILL here find me a particular article I may want to read now and then. Anyhow, this should probably be mandatory reading for certain professors.
Ross
Robyn said
One of the research fellows here at the Museum recently sent this article to me, and of course I am a big fan of it. : ) Thanks to Ross for deeming this worthy enough to re-post here! And thanks to Eric Ramirez-Weaver from the Medieval Dept. for sending it to me in the first place with the subject line “many thanks.”
I have to say that ILL does in fact cost much more than most people (librarians and patrons alike) probably imagine, both monetarily and in terms of time required to locate and receive the things our patrons need for their research. Although we lend as much as we possibly can, Watson Library is truly indebted to our ILL partners who send us stuff with [usually] no strings attached. It probably goes without saying that we borrow so much more than we lend. We could never on our own make up for all the generosity that is given to us from large and small libraries, from near and far.
ILL really is a fundamentally altrusitic endeavor both for borrowers and lenders, although at times it can be quite costly. I definitely want to thank Ken and Linda for allowing Watson’s ILL to go in whatever direction it needs to go in order to provide our patrons with the resources they need. I have never been told “No, you can’t do that” or “We can’t afford that”, and I think that’s quite rare in the Museum world. Sometimes my name appears in an exhibition catalog, but really the thanks belong to all of the libraries out there who entrust their collections to us and our researchers.
Special thanks, too, to Goldwater and Menschel Libraries for pretty much always being willing to send their stuff out to interested scholars, no matter where they are.
I’m so happy that Ms. Ashton found the time to write the article, for the Chronicle to publish it, and for Eric and Ross to acknowledge it. I really do believe in the spirit of ILL, which has been why I’ve stuck with it for over 3 years!
Robyn