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FIL NEWSLETTER Issue. 24 March 1997 ISSN No 0966-21 54 1 Borum jor lnrerrenazng CONTENTS EXCHMCiE W EXPERIENCE WOWHOP held at the EXCHANGE OF EXPERIENCE University of Nottingham WORKSHOP Report 1 last September I *Loughborough University 2 r Jenny Chambers Nottinghamshire Libraries 3 Anne Corin *Astra Charnwood 5 Susan Cooper Banking on BLDSC 6 Brian Else Winchill 8 Nigel Rainford LAMDA : recent 9 developments and hture plans Rose Goodier Book Loans to Russia 10 Ron Hogg IFLA 96 11 Mark Perkins This workshop attracted 35 ILL staff from as far afield as Bristol and Plymouth. Three speakers from the academic, Portrait of the graduate 13 public and business sectors outlined the ILL services offered library assistant as a young by their particular institutions (edited transcripts follow). This man Alastair Flett initiated a lively debate on a range of subjects of current concern to interlending and document delivery departments. Why requests fail 14 In addition, Bob Pickering from BLDSC spoke about news Uni. of Liverpool 14 from Boston Spa including the new billing accounts and how - Update staff get the staples out of the return parcels! Project EARL Update 16 Birmingham Lib. Update 17 VISCOUNT: The next 18 generation impose any limits on the number of requests LOUGHBOROUGH but each department is charged £5.00 per item for their own requests. Requests fell by 30% [,Iwhen charges were imposed 5 years ago but have very gradually been increasing again. As "Loughborough University, formerly each department decides who is authorised to Loughborough University of Technology, place orders, all requests must be checked to began life as a College of Advanced ensure that the correct authorisation has been Technology, became a university in 1966 and obtained. At the end of each month we then merged with the College of Education. invoice departments for all satisfied requests The university has built up areas of and as we make no extra charge for urgent acknowledged expertise in sports science, action and international requests we do not human sciences, aero- and auto-engineering publicise these services widely. and library and information studies, and this is reflected in our library collections. In common with all library readers our users want everything immediately and so we have The Pilkington Library was purpose built in introduced performance targets for dealing 1980 as a teaching library; it houses the with requests. Any request received before Library and Information Studies department 4pm should be checked and transmitted that which cooperates closely with the library itself day. If fbrther bibliographical checking is and serves approximately 14,600 readers of necessary then it should be transmitted before whom 2,000 are staff, 600 are outside noon the following day. Reports returned from registered users and the rest are students and BL and other libraries should be dealt with on non-academic staff. The stock stands at just the same day. Inevitably this is subject to over half a million items. slippage at times of holiday or sickness, but Ne do have a fairly good record. Last year we The Interlibrary loans section has its own :onducted a survey on supply times over a service point for all enquiries and we have two :hree month period, and were pleased to note full time and one half time member of staff, :hat 70% of all items were received within 5 consisting of myself and two library working days. assistants. We receive approximately 12,000 requests a year from our own readers, 10% of The amount and depth of bibliographic which are in stock, and 1,700 requests from :hecking can be variable; at very busy times other libraries. We have been using the we may be slightly less thorough, but we Lancaster ILL system since August 1992, .egularly use our own abstracts, BIDS and when the BLCMP ILL module was 'irst Search. Many of our requests originate abandoned owing to problems. Now that 'rom CD-ROM searches and we often refer TALIS has relaunched the ILL module we are lack to these. Readers will be asked to supply watching with interest to see how things go. i copy of their reference if we cannot trace it, We are very aware of the advantages of an hough we often apply to BL in hope. Books integrated system but at present the merits of md photocopies are delivered by the EMTS Lancaster outweigh the disadvantages of a :arly each morning, checked in and letters standalone system. lotifying arrival sent to readers and lhotocopies sent in the internal mail. Items The majority of our requests come from staff 'or loan must be collected in person as we and postgraduate researchers. Nearly 70% of tequire the reader's signature. 50p a day requests are for serial articles, 12% each from ~verduefines are charged but we do try to be conferences and monographs. We do not is flexible and understanding as possible. The Page 2 FIL Newsletter Issue 24, March 1997 prospect of the BL charge off67.00 plus our administrative charge of E 10.00 usually brings NOTrINGHAMSHIRE the speedy return of an overdue volume. COUNTY LIBRARY Developments that we are looking at for the future include taking part in two E-lib Nottinghamshire County Library serves a projects, and LAMDA. The population of just over one million, 60% of project has unfortunately been delayed by whom are registered as libary members. We and but when have 80 libraries, 8 mobile libraries, a Schools these are resolved we will be testing E1 and Library Service, a household and we document We to also serve a variety of hospitals, prisons, become with LAMDA within the homes and centres. Our current bookstock is next few months. over 2 million and, very importantly for reservations and interlending purposes, we Maintaining statistics seems to be an have a non-fiction store of 1 17,00 items and a part work today' of any fiction store of 20,300 items. Our book issues statistics for EMRLS and annual ones for for last year (1 995196) numbered 9.8 million SCoNUL are very easy to generate with the and we took over 13 1,000 book requests. At Lancaster system. As well as those available f2. million for the current year our bookfund on the statistics menu, we can make use of the is in a steady decline which looks set to ACCESS language for more specific lists. We continue. produce tables for the Academic Services Managers each month to keep them up to date We have a fully automated stock management with the numbers of requests for their system, IBM BookPlus and 47 libraries are on These lists show names and the system accounting for 85% of issues. 17 of numbers, no bibliographic details, in order to these libraries have OPAC and a comply with the Data Protection Act. further 15 have or are shortly to have dial-up links for enquiry purposes. Orders for all The number of outgoing loans has been bookstock are automated on the system using stable over the last few years, between 1,500 the Bookplus acquisitions package. and 2,000. We did experience an increase with the introduction of BLCMP which The Reservations and Interlending Team indicated locations. We do encourage libraries operates as a centralised unit for the county to go through BL first but we are fairly handling all requests for our readers which and that the 'Ystem cannot be satisfied from stock. They also runs on co-operation and goodwill. supply books requested by library authorities We are a relatively small team within the outside Nottinghamshire. The team is a small library but we hope to serve our readers one consisting of a Senior Library Assistant efficientl~and quickl~.We are certainl~very (full-time), plus a full-time and a part-time with both the Lancaster ILL system Clerical Assistant. Between them they handle and the service we receive from the British 5,700 reservations per year from Library; as we obtain 95% of our requests Nottinghamshire readers. About 80% of these from them Our good name depends On their (5,000) progress through to the interlending efficiency." network; the remainder are either bought, 'regretted' or found to be in stock after all! Jenny Our success rate via interlending is around ILL Librarian 81% and typically items are supplied as Loughborough University follows: Page 3 FIL Newsletter Issue 24, March 1997 ~48%from BLDSC less on BL forms each year and of course they ,26% direct from other libraries using increase in cost annually. We find it BL forms necessary, therefore, to control the overall ,22% from EMRLS amount of interlending and have introduced a number of guidelines to restrict overuse by a The remainder come from other libraries such handful of readers: as the London Library; we rarely apply abroad because of the cost. The majority of the ,we do not apply to BL for material in requests are for adult non-fiction books, print costing less than £1 5 .OO although we do also apply for journal articles, ,we allow a maximum of 12 BL loans per music scores and orchestral parts. We rarely reader per year borrow fiction because of the strength of our ,no renewals Fiction Store. ,we do not reapply for the same book for the same reader within 12 months Before sending requests through to the ,we do not apply outside our own region Reservations and Interlending Unit our or to BL for very ephemeral works, e.g. libraries will have checked for bibliographical The Amyityville Horror, The Happy details in BBIP and on our own BookPlus Hooker.