Message-Id: <199602052132.PAA19812@library.wustl.edu> Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 15:27:26 CST From: Jerry Caswell <mailto:jvc@IASTATE.EDU> Subject: ILL To: Multiple recipients of list WEBCAT-L <mailto:WEBCAT-L@WUVMD.WUSTL.EDU>
In response to a message from Jeff Huestis, I wrote:> > One corollary to this is that the ILL request would then be
> > sent to the library where the item was located. However, in actual
> > practice, interlibrary loan requests are governed by a series of
> > inter-institutional relationships that are quite removed from the
> > navigational paths that users may take on the Internet. The ILL
> > people that I know are insisting that those relationships still
> > govern borrowing transactions irrespective of the source of the
> > user's request.
and Jeff replied:
> I missed a beat here. If the whole process is being mediated by the
> local web gateway, isn't this where you put the "smarts" to route the
> request to the local ILL dept? The point of connecting to a remote
> catalog (or several catalogs) would be to save searching time in the ILL
> dept. There is no reason that the remote catalog couldn't be OCLC, etc.
> My main point in this scenario was that this is happening from within the
> context of looking at a web-accessible electronic document--pulling the
> pieces of the user's working environment closer together. Of course,
> maybe, realistically, that isn't such a good idea...
There's no argument with Jeff on this. I should have elaborated a little to say that, once a request is submitted to the ILL Department, another type of process takes over to fulfill the request. This process is likely to be governed by a set of rules that have existed for some time, but which will be invisible to the user. Thus, while the user thinks that s/he submitted a request for an item to abc university, the local ILL Dept. will actually be obtaining the item from xyz university because that is their established practice.
**************************************************************************** * Jerry V. Caswell * Email: mailto:JVC@IASTATE.EDU * * Assistant Director * * * for Automated Systems * * * Iowa State University Library * Phone: (515) 294-5704 * * Ames, IA 50011-2140 * FAX: (515) 294-5525 * ****************************************************************************