Ursula, et al.,
To date we have been able to honor most museum staff ILL requests
even if the requested item is available in Chicago. In fact, we
borrow from the University of Chicago, which is a fellow RLG-SHARES
member. Many museum staff who live near one of the many universities
or colleges in Chicago often do check local libraries. We appreciate
and encourage such activity.
In June 2004 the library suffered some fairly serious budget cuts,
which resulted in the loss of one full-time staff position
(ILL-related) in the Reader Services unit. At that time we were
prepared to institute both an ILL "request budget" per department and
a non-borrowing rule for materials available in Chicago
(Northwestern, Depaul, UC, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago
Public Library, etc.), but through some judicious restructuring we
have, so far, been able to maintain our existing ILL policy. But with
further cuts, or increased ILL traffic, I would not hesitate to
institute a reduced borrowing policy.
The problems with such a policy:
1) Museum staff, regardless of how much instruction one provides,
often have difficulty in navigating the number of different opac
interfaces required to perform a city-wide search.
2) The staff time required to perform city-wide searches, whether
museum staff or library staff, and retrieval time to access that
material, is a cost that may be greater than the cost of an actual
ILL transaction.
3) The non-$ cost to the library, when seen as an impediment to
research rather than an ally is difficult to ascertain, but must be
considered.
Regards to all,
Peter Blank
>Ursula,
>
>We have always encouraged staff to use local resources before relying on
>interlibrary loan, and our staff is very supportive of this approach.
>They appreciate that the library collections in our area complement each
>other to a large degree and happily take advantage of our local
>resources. They also understand that we save money this way. I guess
>we're lucky in that our local libraries are not spread out a great
>distance. And to tell you the truth, many times they probably don't want
>to wait for an ILL. Many times a library staff member will actually pick
>up the material for them if it's convenient.
>
>_____________________________________________
>Samuel Duncan, Technical Services Librarian
>Amon Carter Museum
>3501 Camp Bowie Blvd
>Fort Worth, TX 76107
>817.989.5044
>817.989.5079 (FAX)
>
>----------------------------------------------------
>
>Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 16:48:12 -0500
>From: Ursula Kolmstetter <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Interlibrary Loan question
>
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>Hello All,
>This is a question and some bench marking for museum librarians.
>How do you handle interlibrary loan requests when the item requested is
>available in your city? Our library is a borrowing as well as lending
>library.
>Our policy for our staff requesting an interlibrary loan has been that
>if the item requested is available in town, we ask the staff member
>requesting the material to go to the library and get it. The reason for
>this is that ILLs are quite costly, and we want to fulfill all ILLs that
>are not available in the same city. In addition, ILL requests are also
>time consuming, and we do not have an ILL librarian just devoted to ILL
>requests.
>We have a new staff member who is quite insistent about receiving ILLs
>available in the city. She is ready to go higher up, so I need some
>back-up from other museum libraries. Please send your comments to my
>e-mail address, I will summarize the responses. Thank you for your
>input. Best regards, Ursula Kolmstetter
>
>Ursula Kolmstetter
>Head Librarian, Stout Library
>Indianapolis Museum of Art
>4000 Michigan Road
>Indianapolis, IN 46208-3326
>USA
>Tel.: 317-920-2662, ext. 225
>Fax: 317-926-8931
>e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>http://www.ima-art.org
>
>__________________________________________________________________
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>Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc)
> to [log in to unmask]
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--
------------------------------------------------------------
Peter P. Blank Phone: (312) 443-3665
Head, Reader Services FAX: 312.443.0964
Ryerson & Burnham Libraries [log in to unmask]
Art Institute of Chicago
111 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60603
__________________________________________________________________
Mail submissions to [log in to unmask]
For information about joining ARLIS/NA see:
http://www.arlisna.org/join.html
Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc)
to [log in to unmask]
ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance:
http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html
Questions may be addressed to list owner (Kerri Scannell) at: [log in to unmask]
