Services & Policies - Fall 2007

ILLiad-Automating Interlibrary Loan Processing

The Library will be implementing ILLiad software to facilitate Interlibrary Loans. Library staff will participate in training on this software on July 31, 2007. Requests made from OCLC databases WorldCat, ECO, Philosopher's Index ATLA Religion and from open-URL resources are downloaded from a message file and transferred to ILLiad. ILLiad automatically searches WorldCat. Library staff select the appropriate record and select lenders. ILLiad completes the online form and sends the request to the lender. For article requests, the copyright management system monitors users' requests to stay within fair use limits. After completing an initial profile, users can enter a user ID and password to view outstanding requests, renewals, and overdue notices. For lending, requests from other libraries are automatically searched in our catalog. Requests from local and consortia libraries can be processed first. Books that are available are transferred to an in-process queue. If the book is not available, the request is updated with the appropriate reason. ILLiad then prints a pick list of call numbers for staff to use to retrieve books from the shelves. ILLiad can also print loan labels, the familiar yellow bookstrips that are used to identify interlibrary loan books and shipping labels. After ILLiad is up and running, the Library plans to take advantage of additional options for improving service that will become available with this software.
Bonnie Strohl
Pride, Passion, Promise: Experience Our Jesuit Tradition