Interlibrary loan (abbreviated ILL, and sometimes called interloan, interlending, document delivery, document supply, or interlibrary services, abbreviated ILS) is a service where patrons of one library can borrow materials and receive photocopies of documents that are owned by another library. The user makes a request with a library, which identifies libraries with the desired item, places the request, receives the item, gives it to the user, and arranges for its return. In some cases, fees accompany interlibrary loan services.
Procedures and methods
![Interlibrary Loan (3744575318)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Interlibrary_Loan_%283744575318%29.jpg)
A borrowing library sends, on behalf of its patron, a borrowing request to an owning library for original, photocopy, or scan materials. The owning library sends materials to the borrowing library or supplies a reason for why the request cannot be filled.
Interlibrary loan and resource sharing have a variety of systems and workflows, often based on the scale of service, regional networks, and library systems. Processes are automated by computer systems such as
VDX. Two major systems used are ILLiad and Worldshare Management System.
Interlibrary loan provide users with access to articles from journals that their library does not have. Many journal or database licenses specify whether a library can or cannot supply journal articles via ILL, with many libraries negotiating for ILL to be allowed in licenses. In the early 1990s, the Research Library Group (RLG) created and released Ariel, a software that made communicating both photocopies and native digital articles more efficient. In the early 2000s, Atlas Systems, creators of ILLiad, created Odyssey, which allowed for direct communication of articles between libraries, and ultimately direct sending of articles to library patrons. OCLC created Article Exchange, a cloud-based article sharing platform that automatically deletes articles after a specified number of downloads and/or a number of days.
Medical libraries primarily use DOCLINE, developed by the National Library of Medicine, which comprises libraries in the National Network of Libraries of Medicine.
Link+ is an interlibrary loan scheme in
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
and
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...
, and
OhioLINK
The Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK) is a consortium of Ohio's college and university libraries and the State Library of Ohio. Serving more than 800,000 students, faculty, and staff at 88 institutions with 117 libraries, OhioLINK's ...
is the system used in
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, where the catalogs and databases of state libraries are joined electronically.
History
England
Kate Edith Pierce became the chair of the newly formed East Midlands Regional Library Bureau in 1935. This had been enabled by
Carnegie Trust funding and it enabled "Inter-Library Lending".
United States
![Joseph C](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Joseph_C._Rowell_1919.jpg)
In 1886, Joseph C. Rowell, librarian at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, sought permission to begin interlibrary loan; his request was granted sometime during 1894–1898.
In 1894, Rowell initiated U.C. Berkeley's first program of interlibrary lending in
California State Library
The California State Library is the state library of the State of California, founded in 1850 by the California State Legislature. The Library collects, preserves, generates and disseminates a wide array of information. Today, it is the central ...
. Later that year, Rowell expanded the invitation for a group of libraries, such as
NUCMC. Librarians then filled out the ALA Interlibrary Loan Request Form 2002 and sent it by postal mail to a library that owned a copy. This procedure is still used by libraries that are not members of an electronic interlibrary loan network.
In 1994, the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of the
ALA Ala, ALA, Alaa or Alae may refer to:
Places
* Ala, Hiiu County, Estonia, a village
* Ala, Valga County, Estonia, a village
* Ala, Alappuzha, Kerala, India, a village
* Ala, Iran, a village in Semnan Province
* Ala, Gotland, Sweden
* Alad, S ...
(America Library Association) formed an ALA Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States, which sought to establish resource sharing as a core service and to provide guidelines for libraries. The RUSA section on Resource Sharing has also engaged in initiatives to expand resource sharing, including the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative and Committee.
The
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
and others in Ohio began integrating campus library systems at an early date. In the 1960s, state funds supported development of the Ohio College Library Center (now the
Online Computer Library Center
OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...
). OCLC has since grown into an international organization with a database of 30 million entries representing materials held in more than 10,000 libraries.
Resource sharing networks
Libraries have established voluntary associations, often on a regional basis, to provide an online
union catalog
A union catalog is a combined library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries. Union catalogs have been created in a range of media, including book format, microform, cards and more recently, networked electronic databases. ...
of all items held by all member libraries. Whenever a library adds a new title to its catalog, a copy of the record is also added to the union list. Software facilitates ILL requests and supplies tasks. In the U.S., the
Online Computer Library Center
OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...
(OCLC) is used by public and academic libraries. Formerly, another network
RLIN The Research Libraries Group (RLG) was a U.S.-based library consortium that existed from 1974 until its merger with the OCLC library consortium in 2006. RLG developed the Eureka interlibrary search engine, the RedLightGreen database of bibliograp ...
(Research Libraries Information Network) was used primarily by academic libraries but merged with OCLC on October 1, 2007. Australia and New Zealand use
Libraries Australia
The Australian National Bibliographic Database (ANBD), formerly part of the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) and for some years renamed Kinetica, is a national shared library cataloguing network, hosted by the National Library of Australia. ...
and New Zealand Libraries' Catalogue respectively, the national bibliographic networks of those countries.
Online requests are usually submitted via OCLC's WorldCat or FirstSearch in the United States. Libraries without access to either can participate in interlibrary loan by submitting requests by postal mail, fax, email, or telephone call, referred to as manual requests. Manual requests can be submitted in the United States through the
American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members ...
.
Some libraries establish arrangements with each other to furnish loans and copies for free. These can be national or regional, as with Libraries Very Interested in Sharing (LVIS), Amigos, the Mid-America Association of Law Libraries (MAALL), the
Bibliographical Center for Research
Bibliographical Center for Research (BCR) was a regional cooperative libraries network established in 1935, headquartered in Aurora, Colorado, and active through 2010.
BCR members included over 9000 libraries in an 11-state region of the western ...
, and the Greater Western Library Alliance; they can also be local, between libraries who have an administrative organization in common, as with the
Washington County Cooperative Library Services
Washington County Cooperative Library Services (WCCLS) is the library system serving Washington County, Oregon. WCCLS distributes tax funds to libraries. It was established in 1975.
Libraries
WCCLS is made up of 16 libraries which are operated by ...
, the
Whatcom County Library System Whatcom County Library System (WCLS) provides public library services for residents of Whatcom County, Washington through 10 library branches, a bookmobile, and on the web at http://www.wcls.org. Christine Perkins is the current WCLS Executive Dire ...
, or the
Minuteman Library Network
The Minuteman Library Network (MLN), founded in 1984, is a consortium of 41 public and academic libraries in the MetroWest and southern Middlesex County areas of eastern Massachusetts, US that share resources, patrons and services. The Network ha ...
. Individual libraries may also agree to arrangements with one another outside of any particular organization. Organizations that facilitate reciprocal borrowing may provision other services, such as a courier network for materials (as with the Trans-Amigos Express
) or a union catalog for use by patrons of all member libraries (especially in local-level arrangements).
References
Further reading
* Boucher, Virginia. ''Interlibrary Loan Practices Handbook'', 2nd Edition;
American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members ...
, Chicago and London, 1997
*
*
* Newcombe, Luxmoore. ''Library Co-operation in the British Isles'', in series, ''Practical Library Handbooks'', no. 4. London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1937.
2008 Document Delivery - Best Practices and Vendor Scorecard€”Outsell, Inc.
* ''
Journal of Library Administration
The ''Journal of Library Administration'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers library management. It was established in 1980 and is published 8 times a year by Routledge. The editor-in-chief is Gary M. Pitkin ( University of Northern ...
''; Volume 23, Numbers 1/2, 1996
External links
ALA Interlibrary Loan FormSHAREit by Auto-GraphicsCommercial document delivery vendors
{{DEFAULTSORT:Interlibrary Loan
Library circulation
Library cooperation