May 23, 2012
Some Brief Comments about ILL Turnaround Times
Just wanted to provide some basic information on what you can normally expect as far as the usual time required to receive materials through interlibrary loan. This applies only to transactions submitted through your ILLiad account, and does not refer to OhioLINK or SearchOhio requests.
In the case of articles (from journals or newspapers, but also including book chapters, conference papers, and any other reproduced materials), we almost invariably provide these to you via electronic delivery. Whenever possible, electronic documents come to you as direct deliveries from the selected lender libraries, after ILL staff perform initial processing. We make use preferably of suppliers previously designated by us as 'trusted senders' when we have the opportunity, wherein the document transmissions occur unmediated from them to you the user. Otherwise, direct transmissions from lenders not in this category take place upon initial inspection and further delivery processing by ILL staff. Finally, in cases where printed copies are received by mail of fax, or scans are sent to us by indirect electronic means, the documents require appropriate conversion in order to be properly delivered through your ILLiad account.
This all, of course, affects the overall period required from the moment your article request is submitted up to the final delivery time. In about half the cases, however, turnaround occurs within 48 hours, although many of these arrive to you same-day. In roughly 2 out of 3 cases, they can usually be expected to arrive in under 5 business days. There will always be occasional requests that require a considerable amount of additional attention, and thus take somewhat longer than usual to fill.
In the case of loaned items (i.e., any materials supplied to you on a temporary basis, with a specified due date and possible usage restrictions), we make similar efforts to minimize the time required to borrow them on your behalf. In a similar way as described above, we attempt whenever possible to select potential lenders that have a reputation for lending us materials promptly and at minimal cost. For example, we can often ascertain beforehand which institutions are likely to provide special material types, such as audio-visual or microfilm. For the most part, you can expect loans to arrive in less than 10 or 11 days, but most come within 5 to 7 days (and sometimes even sooner).
As always, extenuating circumstances may arise that affect the total amount of time required to obtain materials through interlibrary loan, for both articles and loans equally. More common materials are easier to get in short order, while rare or esoteric items can be more challenging to locate. The quality of the original citation information provided when you submit your request can lead to delays if inadequate, incomplete or incorrect data has been entered in critical form fields. Keep in mind also that if you submit your requests immediately prior to or during weekends or holidays, it may increase turnaround time as they will not receive attention until the morning of the next business day.
We try to handle interlibrary loan transactions as much as possible through OCLC WorldCat's ILL resource sharing subsystem, which is by far the most expeditious electronic method readily available to us for intermediary processing. However, if circumstances dictate that we use another method, such as e-mail or lenders' individual ILL online request sites, processing may take longer. We try at all costs to avoid having to send out requests through fax or by regular mail. In some cases, additional procedural requirements may come into play, such as special forms to obtain usage clearance for certain materials (such as theses). The occasional physical or electronic delivery mishaps that can come about, and then of course need requisite remedying, can also lead to unfortunate delays.
Considering all these possible factors that can create a protracted length of time involved in acquiring ILL materials, we are still pleased to be able to provide your articles and loans to you in a relatively quick timeframe.
April 23, 2012
Some Tips on Properly Filling out ILL Request Forms
Here's some helpful advice to make entering information into our ILLiad forms more straightforward, so that ILL staff may process your requests without any unnecessary delay --
Titles (Journal titles, Book titles, Conference titles, Article titles, Book Chapter titles, Paper titles, etc.) -- Please avoid entering these using non-Roman (non-English) text, such as foreign letters (Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.) or characters (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.). ILLiad will read these (as well as European diacritics) simply as ASCII HTML code, which we cannot very well use when performing bibliographic searches. If at all possible, please provide titles in translated or transliterated form, and to absolutely simplify things, we appreciate if you can also provide the corresponding ISSN or ISBN, or the OCLC accession record number.
Journal titles & Book titles -- Enter the place of publication in its own field, rather than right after the book or journal title. (This would also apply to the name of the publisher, if you wish to provide that as well.) When requesting a journal title, do not also add the volume number, issue number, year, pages, etc. (i.e., the complete citation) altogether after the journal title; all these data pieces should be entered into their own respective fields. Also, please provide the complete title, not just the first word or first few words, unless it actually is a only a one-word or very short title. Avoiding abbreviated titles is greatly appreciated, as well.
Volume -- You do not need to include 'Vol.', 'Volume', etc., when entering this; the number alone is sufficient (preferably in Arabic numerals, but Roman acceptable too if that's how it appears in your original citation). If the volume number is unknown, then of course you may enter 'unknown' or 'n/a' (since this it a 'required' field).
Issue number -- You do not need to enter 'Issue', 'Iss.', 'Iss. no.', 'number, 'no.', etc.; again, the number alone is adequate, and enclosing it in parentheses also unnecessary.
Book chapter number -- Again, you do not need to include 'Chapter', 'Chap.' or 'Ch.' before the actual number.
Date -- If you have it, enter the month (with or without date number), season or quarter, etc., only. Please enter the year in its own separate field.
Year -- Please enter the year only, with no period following or 'c' preceding. Please avoid hyphenated year ranges; it is preferable if you use latest part of the date instead (e.g., '1985' instead of '1984-85'). As the 'year' is almost always a required field, and is accounted for regarding copyright issues, it is best to keep it in a simple 4-digit format.
Pages -- You do not need to include 'p.', 'pg.', 'pp.', 'page', 'pages', etc.'; the actual numbers or inclusive number range is adequate. If you don't know the pages, of course enter 'n/a' or 'unknown', since this is a required field.
**A word about unnecessary abbreviations and superfluous characters when citing the volume number, issue number, chapter number and page numbers -- these fields accommodate only a short but reasonable amount of text, and what you actually enter may become truncated once it reaches the staff processing view, if it exceeds the limit. The most important part of the information you provide may end up being what gets cut off.**
Correct form selection & use -- Some prime examples:
--'Book' vs. 'Book Chapter' -- If you need only a book chapter, please use the corresponding type form; do not use the form intended for borrowing an entire book and then enter the complete book chapter citation in the 'Book title' or 'Notes' field. If you need several chapters from the same book, it may just be better to request the loan of the entire book instead of submitting numerous copy requests (which, of course, can amount to a violation of copyright).
--'Other' -- This form is intended for LOANS of special materials (e.g., audio/visual, microfilm) only. Do not use it to request copies, or for ordinary loans for which other existing form types are already available.
***CAVEAT--About OpenURL & proper entry into ILLiad -- Sometimes you may encounter a reference page (from 'Mendeley', for example) citing an article, conference paper, etc., with an option such as 'Find this paper at: WorldCat'. This may lead you to a new page titled 'Find in a Library' which displays a link such as 'Request through Interlibrary Loan' that may point you to our ILLiad main logon page. Should you log in with your username and password, a session will open, and attempt to fill out a request form automatically. Unfortunately, the incorrect request form is frequently selected, and the information pieces from the citation are not always properly populated into their corresponding data fields. If you choose to make use of this option, it could quite likely delay the processing of your ILL article requests.***
Item per Transaction -- As always, we ask that you request only one journal article, book title, conference paper, etc., per request form that you submit. Multiple-volume book set loans (e.g., 2 or 3), on the other hand, may requested on a single transaction. However, several volumes from an extended book series should still be requested individually in separate transactions.
'Notes' field -- This is intended for you to indicate special instructions for your request only. Do not use it to specify your actual citation, if everything you need to tell us about it can be entered it other existing fields in the form you have selected.
Source of citation -- This is not the same as the actual citation of the material needed; it refers to where you saw it cited (i.e., in another article, course syllabus). It is not required, but is often helpful in locating a supplier for the material during the search process.
This should be enough for now. Hoping these suggestions are helpful to your use of ILLiad and interlibrary loan services at KSL.
March 23, 2012
Reminders about Electronic Deliveries
Just some important things to keep in mind about receiving electronically delivered articles through your ILLiad account--
* Electronically delivered articles are available for download for up to 30 days after the e-mail notification is sent out to you. Files will be automatically deleted from the online folder of our server after that point, after which they will be no longer accessible.
* We recommend that you download your articles as soon as possible after you receive the notification of availability. We also suggest that you print your files, or save them into a stable, secure storage location (e.g., on a CD-ROM or your computer's hard drive).
* You may choose to delete files immediately after viewing for the first time, but remember that once you have done so you may permanently lose access to these articles. You do have the opportunity to 'undelete' electronic articles, however, as long as you catch them prior to the next scheduled online cleanup session (which takes place around 4:00 AM every morning).
* Some larger files may take longer to download than usual. We recommend that you try waiting a while before you attempt to view the article again simply because an image has not appeared immediately on the page. Repeatedly clicking on 'View' before you see anything simply re-initiates the downloading process, and actually makes the overall operation take even longer.
* The table that appears displaying your currently available electronic deliveries also indicates the file size and expiration date for each transaction. This is intended to assist you with determining the period of availability and in estimating the required download time.
* We ask that you only retain a single copy of each file we provide, and refrain from freely distributing article PDF's. Please try to be mindful of copyright regulations when using any protected materials you have received through interlibrary loan or from any of our library's resources.
* Occasionally, items you have originally requested in forms normally supplied as 'loans' (e.g., reports, some theses and dissertations, short pamphlets or monographs) are instead provided to us as complete reproductions (in either hard-copy or electronic formats) by the lender institutions. In such cases (except when not feasible), we will convert the ILLiad transaction to a 'copy' type and deliver the entire documents electronically. All the statements above (especially regarding file size and downloading speed, as well as copyright issues) apply equally in these circumstances.
* We recommend you always keep your browser and Adobe Acrobat reader software up-to-date.
* If you still experience problems with retrieval of electronic articles, or have further questions or concerns, feel free to contact us by phone at (216) 368-3517 or (216) 368-3463 (M-F, 9:00 AM-4:30 PM), or by e-mail at: smithill@case.edu.
Hope these pointers are helpful in your use of ILLiad electronic article delivery, and answer some general questions you may have regarding this service.
February 23, 2012
Quick List of ILL Pointers
In contrast to my usual style, I'm just putting down a simple checklist of suggestions for more expeditious use of ILLiad services...
1. Check for local holdings of materials in our own catalog (including electronic resources) first, before you decide to submit requests in ILLiad. Remember also to use OhioLINK and SearchOhio first for borrowing books when copies are available there.
2. Request only one item (loan title or copy) per ILL transaction.
3. Provide as complete citations for the materials you need as possible. Clear and precise information will make your ILL requests easier for us to process, thus avoiding unnecessary verification delays.
4. Avoid submitting duplicate requests for the same materials.
5. View your electronically received articles as soon as possible. Keep in mind that they will ordinarily expire 30 days after your initial notification.
6. Keep your browser and your PDF viewer software program (i.e., Adobe Acrobat) current, for improved use of ILLiad and better access to your electronic articles.
7. Pick up requested books at your earliest convenience, but prior to the assigned due date. If you decide that you do not need them, please notify us as soon as possible so we may return them to the lending library.
8. Return books on time or request renewals before the due date. There is a 5-day window prior to this when you may ask for a renewal through your ILLiad account, as long as an item has not been assigned a 'No Renewals' restriction by the lender.
9. Library staff at the KSL main service desk have access to the ILL Web Circulation site, and can check out and check in your ILLiad loans at that service point in real time. They can also submit renewal requests for any eligible loans and search active loan transactions in your account, for your convenience.
10. 'Library-Use-Only' loans may not be taken outside the Kelvin Smith Library building. This restriction is imposed by the lender library (usually for rare, fragile, or valuable materials), and should be considered non-negotiable.
11. If you indicate you won't accept an alternate edition of a book, please don't forget to specify the edition you do want when you submit your loan request.
12. Keep personal information in your ILLiad account current, especially your e-mail address.
13. If you don't remember your password, please try the 'Forgot Password?' feature on our logon page, for faster service.
I have addressed most of these points in greater detail in earlier blog entries here. Feel free to check the index entries and search options for this blog, and have another look at some of my previous commentaries in the archive regarding these and other issues related to Interlibrary Loan services.
January 25, 2012
ILL Do's and Don't's - 2nd Installment
As promised, here are more...
Do submit a separate ILLiad request form for each individual loan or copy you need. We cannot provide multiple items on a single transaction due to the unnecessary processing and searching difficulties this creates, and because of the reasonable expectations of potential lenders. Where copies of articles and book chapters are involved, this also raises copyright issues.
Don't submit duplicate requests for the same loan or copy. If you have submitted a request and need to make a change, you can usually edit it if you catch it shortly afterwards. If ILL staff have already processed a request that you can no longer edit, please contact us by phone or e-mail to make any corrections or additions you think need to be included. Also, you may contact us regarding the status of an existing active request, rather than just submitting another transaction for the same material.
Do seek out bookstore copies of new, used, or rentable textbooks for your coursework. If they have run out of copies for your class, consider inquiring whether they have more on order. You can always check for the availability of such titles in OhioLINK as well, and you may be able to borrow a copy that way at least to hold you over for a good while. With extended renewals possible on these loans, you may even be set for a good portion of the academic term.
Don't rely on interlibrary loan services to fill your textbook requirements for the entire semester period. We can help supplement your needs up to a reasonable point, but should not have to act as a substitute for obtaining your own personal copies. Unfortunately, indefinite numbers of copies of the same title and edition cannot be assumed to be available from the pool of potential lender libraries. Local users from other universities and colleges where equivalent courses are also taught may have the same idea, and will have secured all the copies held at their own academic libraries. Even if we are able to borrow a textbook from another location, there is always the possibility that a lender's local patron will request for it to be recalled at some point in the term for their own use.
Do make a habit of indicating the specific edition of a loaned item you need, if possible. Please provide any publisher and publication year information, if you are able. It is always helpful if you can also give the ISBN, as this makes the matter unequivocal as to the specific edition required. If you do not care which edition you want us to obtain, at least give some hint of the year or possible years. Of course, if you need to borrow copies of more than one specific edition of the same title, we ask that you request these separately.
Don't forget to indicate whether or not you will accept an alternate edition. You can select this option when you submit your loan request form. This is most helpful in a case when your original indication is already for a specific edition. If you haven't specified which edition from the start, we won't be able to interpret a selection of 'No', and will have to disregard it.
Do indicate whether or not you will accept your ILL materials in a foreign language. If this is a matter of concern, you ay select the 'Accept Non-English' option when you submit your request form -- the default setting for this is 'Yes'.
Don't forget that materials you request that are originally cited in a foreign language most likely will be provided in that same language. Books, theses, articles, papers, etc., that are known with certainty to have been translated into English should also be cited in English when you submit your request, unless you actually want the original language version. Keep in mind that materials referenced by title and abstract in English may not necessarily be available full-text in English translation.
Do keep the personal information in your ILLiad profile correct and up-to-date. We ask this especially where your current e-mail and phone contact information are concerned, as this is our primary means of notifying you about your interlibrary loan service issues.
Don't create multiple user accounts in ILLiad, for any reason. If you forget your password, please use the 'Forgot Password' link available on the main login page, or contact us by phone or e-mail to reset it manually. In case you have forgotten your username, or if your account has become blocked or has been disavowed, contact ILL staff directly as well, so we may help to resolve the situation.
Hope these additional quick reminders will help you out with making better use of ILLiad and your interlibrary loan services.
ILL staff contact information--
Phone: (216)368-3517 or (216)368-3463, M-F, 9:00AM-4:30PM
E-mail: smithill@case.edu
December 27, 2011
OCLC Non-Supplier Locations
We always appreciate when you have made the effort to check the worldwide holdings of an item you need, and provide us with the OCLC accession number when submitting your ILL request. However, I would like to mention a few caveats related to the actual availability of materials that are recorded in the WorldCat database.
When you click on the Libraries worldwide that own item link within an OCLC bibliographic record, a list of library locations will appear, normally organized alphabetically by state but with Ohio appearing at the top, then Canadian and other international locations following. It used to be (if memory serves me correctly) that the status of a potential lender was indicated in the public view as follows -- uppercase OCLC symbols (or capitals in blue, underlined) signified supplier libraries, while lowercase OCLC symbols (or capitals in black, not underlined) indicated non-suppliers. The ILL staff view still retains this feature, so we are still able to immediately ascertain which libraries are most likely to supply materials through interlibrary loan.
Unfortunately, in the current public display this feature no longer persists (if it ever was there to begin with), and you as users are not able to make this distinction as are library staff. In fact, you may be led to believe that all listed locations for a particular item are potential suppliers, since all their symbols appear virtually the same (i.e., capitals, in black). Though it is not so easy for you to determine this any more, a helpful feature is still available. A great number of holdings locations also provide links to the institution libraries' online catalogs on their entry lines (though some of these may currently turn out to be broken as they haven't been updated). Those good links that exist may take you directly to the catalog entry for the particular item for the bibliographic record, or possibly only to the online catalog main search page or the library's main page. If you successfully reach a catalog record for your item at a particular library, the status and availability is usually indicated (e.g., whether item is non-circulating or currently checked out).
Finding a library catalog entry that shows available materials, however, is still not a guarantee that the institution is a potential lender, although it usually is a good indicator. The status of 'non-supplier' in an OCLC member's policy statement implies that they cannot receive requests through OCLC's ILL subsystem, our primary mechanism of operation. A library can list itself as a 'non-supplier' in one of two ways: permanently, as a matter of policy, or temporarily, according to a scheduled closure (holiday break, between academic sessions, re-location down-time, etc.). Also, OCLC libraries marked as supplier institutions can still act as virtual non-suppliers in specific circumstances, by setting up active deflection policies. These locations may choose not to lend outside their own consortium group, or may not loan certain material types (e.g., audio-visual or other special media, archival materials or items over a certain age, books that are deemed too new to loan externally).
Although there is no way now for public users to ascertain the supplier status of OCLC institutions, the following may serve as a rough guide. Most public and academic libraries in the United States and Canada will normally be suppliers, while a good deal of special libraries (corporate, private medical, museums, law firms) are not. Major research libraries in the United Kingdom and continental Europe often are suppliers, but many academic libraries in those places are not. Most libraries in Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere are non-suppliers, though a few academic libraries in Japan are. Several major academic libraries in Australia and New Zealand tend to be suppliers, as well. This is not a hard-and-fast set of rules, and is by no means exhaustive, but is just meant to give a rough approximation of what could be expected from various sources.
As obtaining materials on interlibrary loan from non-suppliers goes, the fact that they do not accept requests through the automated system in place that OCLC provides means that it is much more difficult than usual to borrow from them, if it can be done at all. Many such institutions simply are non-circulating collections, and often will not agree even to provide complete or partial reproductions. Those that will agree to offer interlibrary loan services require the use of mechanisms other than OCLC to receive request transactions. Submitting requests by these means is usually much more time-consuming, and the turnaround time for responses and receipt of materials is much longer than in more routine cases.
OCLC is not the whole story in the business of interlibrary loan, of course, but it is the principle workhorse for us and many other institutions. Libraries that do not act as suppliers through OCLC frequently are those with rare or esoteric collections, and it is in cases where these types of materials are required that our efforts will be protracted. Please be reassured that we still work outside this resource when absolutely necessary to get our users the materials they need. We just want you to be aware that, even though we try to be expeditious in the majority of our services, there are still circumstances beyond our control that put us into a 'holding pattern' (such as needing to borrow a foreign thesis during an academic session break). Your patience, understanding and consideration in such cases it always greatly appreciated.
November 23, 2011
ILL Do's and Don't's - 1st Installment
Just sending out a friendly reminder of some of the most common helpful hints for better use of your ILLiad services--
Do provide complete and accurate information in your request citations, entering each piece of data into its corresponding form field. Omitting vital pieces of data makes locating and obtaining the materials you need all that much more difficult, for both KSL ILL staff and the ILL staff of potential supplier libraries.
Don't abbreviate titles -- books, journals, conference proceedings, etc. Searching for incomplete of ambiguous titles in the databases which we use consumes excess processing time, delaying your request turnaround.
Do return or renew books by their due date. Overdue ILL books cannot normally be renewed, and items 2 weeks or more past their due date can block your ILLiad account and prevent you from using vital interlibrary loan services.
Don't request renewals after the specified due date. Renewal requests on your ILL books (if allowed or available according to lenders' specified policies) must be submitted within 5 days before original due date. It is not possible to request a renewal online through ILLiad on an overdue book. You will need to contact ILL staff about doing so, and it may be difficult or impossible to expect a lender library to accommodate such a loan extension.
Do check our library's online catalog, OhioLINK (and SearchOhio), electronic journal and electronic book collections, before choosing to use ILLiad. You can save yourself much time by locating books, journals, etc., right here in our own locally accessible collections -- and these won't need to be obtained through interlibrary loan, involving unnecessary time and effort.
Don't request materials already available through our local or consortium collections. You can find books and print journals in our own libraries' physical collections, and access electronic resources directly from campus workstations. *Exceptions apply only in the case of document delivery services provided exclusively to special user types (as noted below).
Do provide sources of citations in the appropriate ILLiad form fields (under 'Where did you learn about this item?'), and any special instructions in the 'Notes' field. We can heed this information immediately when we process your request.
Don't send e-mail comments about ILLiad transactions after already submitting requests, if at all possible. Also note that submitted request forms may be edited and re-submitted if ILL staff have not yet processed them, and you shouldn't need to submit duplicate requests either. ILL staff may have already begun processing requests in ILLiad before ever seeing any such e-mail messages, so corrections to be made after-the-fact based on these (as opposed to 'Notes' in the request form) can be more difficult and time-consuming.
Do use appropriate request forms for the specific corresponding material types -- 'Journal Article', 'Book Chapter', 'Conference Paper', 'Patent' or 'Standards Document' for copies; 'Book', 'Report', 'Thesis' or 'Other' for loans.
Don't use the 'Other' request form for articles or other reproduced materials, or for loans that already fit nicely into the other existing loan request forms. The 'Other' form is only intended for special types of materials to be borrowed, and that require more detailed information and instructions than can be accommodated in the other available forms.
*Exceptions to this policy include the following categories of verified special user statuses:
1. Distance Ed Graduates currently enrolled in Weatherhead's DM (Doctor of Management) program -- may request loans and copies from KSL library collections.
2. Faculty (in departments served by KSL for ILL purposes, but not those so served by other campus library systems, i.e., Health Sciences, MSASS, Law) -- may request copies from KSL collections.
3. Alumni Online Library participants -- may only request copies from KSL collections.
I have discussed all of these points in greater detail in previous blog entries, but just wanted to provide a quick digest of some of the most frequent issues that we encounter while processing ILL requests. There'll be more installments of this sort to come in the future, I'm sure...