ILL Committee Liaison Report--Library of Congress

Library of Congress Liaison Report


RUSA MOUSS Interlibrary Loan Committee


ALA Annual Conference 2002 - Atlanta

Reorganization of the Loan Division

Library of Congress senior managers have approved the merger of the Loan Division and the Collections Management Division. The intention is to provide a single organizational entity which will handle all requests for items in the collections, whether the request is from a Member of Congress, an interlibrary loan client, a reading room patron or an LC staffer. The first phase of a planned five-step reorganization has been completed, with the establishment, on paper, of the Collections Access, Loan and Management Division (CALM). In reality, there have only been a couple of changes thus far. Steve Herman, the former Chief of the Collections Management Division, has been reassigned to become the Acting Chief of CALM. Chris Wright, the former Chief of the Loan Division, has embarked on a new assignment with the Library's foreign language divisions as assistant to the Director for Area Studies.

Until the reorganization and merger is completed, in about a year's time, all other managers, supervisors and staff of the former two divisions are performing the same duties in the same organizational alignment as before. So, all interlibrary loan contacts at LC, with the exception of Chris Wright, are still valid. The following managers are available to assist you with ILL questions/concerns:

Steve Herman


Acting Chief, CALM


Tel.: 202-707-7400


E-mail:
sher@loc.gov

Meredith Haddock


Head, Loan Reference Section


Tel.: 202-707-5450


E-mail:
mhad@loc.gov

Elgin Reid


Head, Circulation Section


Tel: 202-707-5348


E-mail:
erei@loc.gov

Mail Delivery Problems

Deliveries of regular U.S. Postal Service mail were disrupted for several months beginning during last October's anthrax incidents. There are millions of pieces of mail from late 2001 and early 2002 that remain undelivered. Current mail is now being delivered regularly to the Library, albeit with a two-week delay. Please be aware of this delay when shipping materials back to the Library via the U.S. Postal Service. Materials shipped via Federal Express, UPS or other express services are received regularly and are clearing with minimal delays.

Overdues

The circulation period for a book from the Library is a total of sixty days, which includes an automatic thirty-day renewal period. Any overdue item on an interlibrary loan account will result in an immediate suspension of borrowing privileges. If you receive a message that your account has been suspended because of an overdue item, please send an e-mail message to
loancirc@loc.gov or call the Circulation Section at 202-707-5441.

Digital Delivery Update

Progress continues to be made on the pilot program initiated by Chris Wright to "deliver" non-circulating pamphlets and fragile books by scanning them and making them available over the Internet. Materials selected for this program must be in the public domain. Once scanned, the digital images of these books can be found either by linking from the item's catalog record in the LC Web OPAC or by selecting the title from the former Loan Division's website (
www.loc.gov/rr/loan). Although just a limited number of items is currently being scanned, plans are being developed to expand this program well beyond its pilot level.

Loan Statistics

  • In Fiscal Year 2001 (October 2000 through September 2001), the Loan Division received a total of 58,835 interlibrary loan requests, and filled successfully 36.42% of them.
  • Over 57% of the requests came from academic libraries in the United States, while nearly 24% came from American public libraries. The remaining requests came from a variety of government, special and foreign libraries.
  • Nearly 80% of the requests were received via OCLC, while almost 13% arrived via RLIN. The remainder were received through other means, including e-mail and fax.

Submitted by


Joe Puccio


Public Service Officer


Collections Access, Loan and Management Division


Tel.: 202-707-1413


E-Mail:
jpuc@loc.gov


5/20/02