How they do it over there: Interlibrary loan in North America.

Joanne Dillon University of Waikato Library, New Zealand

Abstract
In 2000 Joanne Dillon was awarded the biennial Edith Jessie Carnell Travelling Scholarship by LIANZA (Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa). In March 2001 she travelled to the United States and Canada to investigate trends and developments in two areas. The first was interlibrary loan and document delivery and the second was services to distance students within university libraries. Joanne also visited the British Library Document Supply Centre in the United Kingdom. This paper addresses the major findings of this exciting 5-week research trip in relation to the way interlibrary loan and document delivery functions of library service are carried out in North America.

Introduction
In New Zealand we call it interloan; in Australia and North America they call it interlibrary loan and in the United Kingdom it's known as interlending. All the world over the terms document delivery, document supply and resource sharing are becoming more widely used. Name differences aside, how different are things in the Northern Hemisphere with regard to the practice of resource sharing between libraries?

New Zealand interloan
To begin with, what do we have in New Zealand? When I first interloaned a book in the late 1980's it was a simple manner of filling in a pink card and posting it to the library that held the book I wanted. We still see those pink cards from time to time but they must be becoming scarce.

Gone are the days of NZBN Interloan. Today most interloans librarians are familiar with its big brother, Te Puna Interloan, which is used widely in New Zealand. Across the ocean in Australia is another VDX system, Kinetica Document Delivery, which is widely used by large New Zealand libraries to request items not available in New Zealand.

Elaine Hall describes how the interloan scheme works in New Zealand with "charter libraries that must report holdings to the national union catalogue, and can both supply and request; and requesting only libraries that can only request and are subject to higher charges." [1]

Edith Jessie Carnell Travelling Scholarship
Edith Jessie Carnell, a British librarian, worked in New Zealand from 1939-1944 as liaison between the New Zealand Library Association and the Country Library Service. A New Zealand librarian, Mr Archie Dunningham, left a bequest to the library association in his will. The LIANZA Code of Practice states that the scholarship, named the 'Edith Jessie Carnell Travelling Scholarship', is "to be used to enhance the knowledge and development of the profession in New Zealand, the aims of the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa and to further the continuing professional development of the successful applicant". [2]

I applied for this prestigious scholarship in 2000 and was thrilled to hear that I had been successful. I had put together a very detailed itinerary of how I was going to spend the $7000. My proposed area of research was in interlibrary loans/document delivery and library services to distance services. The topic I selected was one of personal interest to me and one that is important to library services in an era of budget cuts and increased user expectations.

I searched webpages of a number of library associations to determine if any conferences over the next 12 months covered my areas of interest. One conference in particular appealed to me - the 10th National ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries) Conference in Denver, Colorado. One of the main themes of the conference was distance/distributed education and the delivery of library services to off-campus students. None of the conference papers covered document delivery or interlibrary loan so I was pleased that I had planned a series of library visits prior to and following the conference.

My library visits were in the US states of Montana and Colorado and the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia - to seven university libraries in all. I selected the libraries by searching the internet and looking for university libraries that were similar in size to the University of Waikato Library, where I work. I posted an e-mail to a North American interlibrary loan listserv asking if any librarians would be happy to show me around their libraries. Also, as I had decided to travel across Canada by rail, I chose libraries that were along the rail route. Each library had something special to offer - many of them had similarities but something unique which added an extra educational dimension to my visit.

The United States of America
I only visited three libraries in the United States and one in Montana and two in Colorado. All of these libraries rely heavily on OCLC to manage their interlibrary loans. OCLC (Online Computer Library Center, Inc.) provides access to WorldCat, which is the OCLC online union catalogue and contains over 43 million records. This gives access to the collections of almost 7000 libraries. From WorldCat libraries are able to find potential lenders and electronically create an interlibrary loan request.

Montana State University Library, Bozeman
After a long trip from Auckland, New Zealand to Bozeman, Montana I was pleased to be greeted by a pair of friendly faces. Mary Bushing and her partner Jim both work at the Montana State University Library - Jim as a member of the faculty in the philosophy department and Mary also in faculty - as information resources development librarian. I had never met Mary before my scholarship trip, but had communicated with her by e-mail for a few months before my visit. She had visited New Zealand on two occasions and is friends with the university librarian at my employing library. She was a wonderful host in Bozeman and remains a warm and friendly e-mail correspondent.

My visit to Montana State University included a meeting with Bette, the interlibrary loans librarian who gave me my first look at OCLC. As I had never seen OCLC 'in the flesh' before it looked very complicated to me, but I was assured that it was really very simple.

The procedures at Montana State University are very labour intensive mainly because there is no webform. Library users fill in a paper form and all details need to be entered into OCLC by a member of the interlibrary loan team. This team was like all of the others I visited - some staff do inward interlibrary loans and others do outward interlibrary loans, but never the twain did meet. I have found this to be a common situation in New Zealand university libraries also, however at the University of Waikato Library we do things a little differently. All staff do both inward and outward interlibrary loans and this provides staff with a good deal of variety in their duties. It also ensures that there is always someone skilled in all aspects of interlibrary loan tasks in events of staff absences.

Auraria Library, University of Colorado at Denver
The Auraria Library is interesting in that it provides library services to a number of institutions. The library building is located on the University of Colorado at Denver campus but the users come from all over Denver. Clients include students from the Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State College of Denver, Auraria Higher Education Center and of course, the University of Colorado at Denver. Other residents of Colorado are also entitled to use library resources and services. They are even able to make interlibrary loan requests, although they are charged US$10 per request plus copyright and delivery fees. There are no interlibrary charges for clients who are enrolled in any of the above institutions.

The Auraria Library serves 23 000 enrolled clients of which 90 per cent are undergraduates. Their collection includes 600 000 books, 3 300 periodical subscriptions and 853 CD-ROM titles. The library is a member of the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (CARL) and through this has access to an additional 6 million volumes through interlibrary loan.

Like Montana University Library at Bozeman, the Auraria Library is a heavy user of OCLC. However, they are becoming paperless and use WebZap to receive interlibrary loan requests from borrowers as well as paper request forms which are soon to be phased out.

WebZap was developed by Colorado State University Library in Fort Collins and is still hosted on a server there. It is a web-based electronic request system. It is fully ISO compliant allowing libraries to interface with any other ISO compliant software. All requests that are inputted by Auraria Library clients get sent electronically to the OCLC review file via the server in Fort Collins. This eliminates much of the data entry required in libraries that rely on paper request forms. This shortens the amount of time taken to obtain items for borrowers. Auraria Library offer a 2-8 day turnaround for most requests, however up to three weeks if obtained from outside Colorado.

Colorado State University Library, Fort Collins
One of the most advanced interlibrary loan departments in the United States is at the William E Morgan Library at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. The university is home to just over 21 000 enrolled students. They hold 1.7 million books, 21 000 periodical titles and over 4000 CD-ROM titles.

Tom Delaney and his ILL staff at Colorado State University are very focussed on technological enhancements and even have their own computer programmer. In 1997 the team had just begun using interlibrary loan management software called Clio to manage their requests. Patrons inputted requests online using Zap software (now WebZap), and this was sent to OCLC via Clio. Just a few keystrokes were needed to activate each request. On the lending side, a US$5000 scanner had just been purchased to automate the supply of articles to other libraries. In July 1997 the Interlibrary Loan service at Colorado State had become a paperless operation.

On the 28 July 1997 Fort Collins experienced a flash flood which caused huge loss and damage to the city. They had more rain in two hours then they normally had in 9 months. The drainage systems in this plains region was unable to cope with such heavy rainfall and led to an emergency in the whole city. Numerous buildings and homes were destroyed and five lives were lost. The William E Morgan Library was nearing the completion of a major renovation project. However, on the 29th of July, the lower level of the building filled with 10 feet of water. This damaged more than 462 000 volumes and caused interior walls to collapse. The main damage was to the science and technology section and all social science and humanities journals.

Immediately following the disaster, damaged books and journals were freeze-dried and sent to Fort Worth, Texas to be processed. It took fourteen days to remove these books from the library building. Over the following weeks and months, the library received 500 000 gifts of books and journals from other libraries and from publishing companies. They were also donated a number of subscriptions to databases that provided full-text and full-image access to serial titles. As it was almost the beginning of semester, library staff had to develop a plan to provide library resources to the students and faculty. They:

used full-text and full-image electronic resources
enhanced interlibrary loan services
established a shuttle service to nearby academic libraries
implemented the use of Ariel software

When I visited Fort Collins in March 2001 they were still not lending resources to other libraries but expecting to become a lender again in their summer. This disaster however has forced Colorado State to enhance their requesting procedures even further to a point where they are now trialling a 1-day turnaround journal article service to their students.

The United Kingdom
Due to the cost of air travel in North America, the cheapest way for me to get to all of the destinations on my proposed itinerary was a return flight from New Zealand to the United Kingdom with 4 stopovers in each direction. I leapt at the chance to return to England five years after living there. I only stayed a week this time and took the opportunity to travel north to York by train.

British Library Document Supply Centre
A driver from the British Library Document Supply Centre met me at the railway station and drove me to Boston Spa where I was met by Kate Hutchinson of the customer services team. I was then taken on a tour of the large building to see the many different parts of the library. It was a fascinating experience to see where all of those items I request from the British Library come from and what happens to my requests when I click on the submit button on the British Library Public Catalogue.

One of the areas of the Document Supply Centre that most interested me was the British Thesis Service. I was shown around the section where theses from around the United Kingdom are borrowed, photocopied and recorded onto microfilm to be added to the British Thesis collection. The British Library has access to the majority of British doctoral theses and those that are already in stock can be supplied to a requestor in just one-day. Many other UK theses can be obtained, copied and supplied within just a few weeks. The thesis collection also extends to over 420 000 US thesis, however these are only for loan with the United Kingdom. The Report and Microform Store houses over 90 000 theses on either fiche or film and a large collection of UK and non-UK report literature.

Canada
The two words that most come to mind when I think of interlibrary loan in Canada are copyright and consortia.

University of Regina Library
I left wind and rain in London and arrived to snow in Canada. I woke up in Regina to see that there had been a heavy dumping of snow overnight. Fortunately I was accommodated on campus so was able to enjoy the beauty of the snow from the warmth of the indoors.

The warmth continued into the friendliness of the interlibrary loan staff at the University of Regina library who made me very welcome. The team was separated into two offices - one for requesting and one for lending. The lending side employs student assistants to collect items from within the main library and from the other library buildings. During winter that means traipsing through the snow with backpacks to collect books and journal volumes. These items are then processed by the permanent ILL staff from the warmth of the office. Staff and students use paper forms to request interlibrary loans. A webform is not yet available and the ILL team is delaying the launch of a webform until a decision is made about which ILL software they will be purchasing. They, along with a large number of Canadian libraries, currently use Aviso, but they are working with their consortium partners to purchase a software package together. The University of Regina Library do not place a limit on the number of interlibrary loans that a staff member or student may place. They do, however, penalise borrowers for keeping their interlibrary loans overdue or for non-collection of items. They have found that this has had a positive effect on ensuring that clients only request what they really need and that they do make use of what they have requested. A fulltime librarian is employed at the University of Alberta Library in Edmonton to supply University of Regina's interloan requests. This salary is paid for by the University of Regina and enables items to be supplied within 3-4 days. Items that are not held at the University of Alberta Library are obtained from other Canadian sources within 2-4 weeks. If the request needs to be made to US libraries they may take from 2-6 weeks and up to three months to go further afield than North America. This contradicted with my prior feeling that because North American libraries had access to a far larger resource base than we do in Australasia that they would be able to provide a faster service.

University of Saskatchewan Libraries, Saskatoon
This library visit was another example of warm hospitality from a fellow librarian. The only days I had free in Saskatoon were a Saturday and Sunday. Very kindly, the head of interlibrary loans and the head of the U-Sask distance service offered to be at the library to meet with me on Saturday morning. Virginia, the Head of Interlibrary Loans, even picked me up from my hotel and drove me to the University of Saskatchewan. Before taking me to the library she drove me around a number of university buildings, pointing out various departments and facilities. The University of Saskatchewan at Saskatoon has two interlibrary loan units and the first is at the Health Services library and caters to the School of Medicine faculty and students and Saskatoon medical practitioners. The interlibrary loan team at the main library serves all other academic departments. They promise a 2-week turnaround for a majority of interlibrary loan requests that are made by their users. Their ability to deliver journal articles within this time period has been aided by the use of software called GODOT that was developed by Kristina Long at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. At the University of Saskatchewan Libraries, GODOT is used to provide unmediated document delivery from Webspirs journal index. This has enabled the ILL team to deliver a greater number of interlibrary loan requests without needing to increase staffing numbers. Before I visited the libraries I looked at their webpages. I was very impressed with the information on the University of Saskatchewan Libraries, particularly the "why we cancel requests" section.

University of Alberta Library, Edmonton
The University of Alberta is a heavy lending library. They use Relais software that enables them to allocate a barcode to each request. When supplying a journal article they scan the item and record the barcode. This then sends the scanned document to the requesting library and updates the interlibrary loan request details online at the same time. The University of Alberta Library has a number of expedited services available to their users. Students may request items directly from CISTI, the University of Toronto Library and University of Calgary Library. They also provide access to a number of commercial services which students can use by paying for the cost with their credit card.

Simon Fraser University, Vancouver
WA Bennett Library was the last stop on my itinerary and it was one of the best. I arrived in Vancouver to a long-lasting transit strike that meant there were no buses, trains or sea ferries. The only form of transport available to me was taxi or my own two feet. Simon Fraser University was a long way out of town - therefore walking was impossible and a taxi ride would have been very expensive. The hospitality shown to me by the interlibrary loans librarian at Simon Fraser was just like the hospitality I had received from other librarians throughout my travels. Gwen Bird travelled into the city of Vancouver to pick me up and drove me back at the end of the day. I was touched by this kind gesture and the many others I experienced throughout my 5-week journey. The interlibrary loan unit at Simon Fraser University is totally paperless, much like Colorado State University Library in Fort Collins. All interloan requests are received electronically and whether from staff and students or from other libraries. Like the University of Saskatchewan, Simon Fraser University pays the salary of a fulltime librarian at the University of Alberta Library. They have a similar arrangement with the University of British Columbia. This enables them to supply a large number of requests within only 3-7 days. Requests that are supplied from other libraries take an average of 3-10 days. Simon Fraser University Library is the home of GODOT (Generalized Online Document Ordering and Texts) which was developed in the mid-1990s. GODOT was developed to "provide users with the ability to search one place to find and retrieve/order articles without having to use a secondary interface to complete the search and retrieval process" 3 It was developed on behalf of and with funding from COPPUL. When searching GODOT, students have access to the holdings of over 40 libraries and also fulltext journal articles from a number of databases in just one search. From the search result screen, the student can print a fulltext article, view local holdings or make an interlibrary request. When they fill in the interlibrary request form the request is sent automatically to the lending library, which means that there is no intervention required from the Simon Fraser University librarians.

Copyright
Although the Canadian university libraries I visited were for the most part, highly automated, they still face some challenges. Canadian Copyright law prevents ILL staff from electronically delivering articles to their users. If the University of Alberta Library receives an article via Ariel from another library, they then have to print the item and mail it to the user. If they e-mail the document to the user they are making a second copy and this is not in compliance with copyright requirements. In the United States the law is interpreted differently and ILL librarians are able to e-mail pdf documents onto borrowers without any problem.

Consortia
A number of library consortia exist in Canada. The Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL) is a consortium of sixteen university libraries located in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. The vision of COPPUL is to be a "cohesive and collaborative organisation which provides leadership in the development of solutions that meet the academic information resource needs of its member institutions. One of their goals is to "establish formal, discipline-based resource-sharing agreements, based on changing institutional priorities". This includes a number of specific goals relating to the elimination of ILL fees, joint purchasing of ILL management software and developing a 24-hour delivery time for document delivery to COPPUL members. CARL (Canadian Association of Research Libraries) was established in 1976 and consists of 27 university libraries, the National Library of Canada and the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI). CARL has three basic goals. One of these is to "work toward the realization of a national research library resource-sharing network in the areas of collection development, preservation and access".

Conclusion
Having traveled across the world to investigate interlibrary loan and document delivery services in the Northern Hemisphere it is interesting and reassuring to see that the same issues are relevant in New Zealand and Australia. The topics most talked about by interlibrary loans librarians in the United States and Canada are ISO protocol, copyright, fulltext access to materials, interlibrary loan management software and consortia. New Zealand is more fortunate than Canada with regard to copyright issues. What we could focus on perhaps is the collaboration with our partners in purchasing interlibrary loan management software. This alone would bring us technologically up-to-date with our colleagues in North America. In all other respects I think we are on a par with the United States and Canada and even though we are geographically isolated from major collections and and that is something we should be proud of.

Author
Joanne Dillon has been employed in the library and information profession since 1988, initially in a public library for 7 years as a library assistant. She had responsibility for acquisitions, cataloguing and system administration with daily circulation and reference duties. During a 12-month period overseas she enjoyed temping fulltime in law and corporate libraries where she gained valuable experience of their systems and workplace environments. Since her return to New Zealand in 1996 she has been able to integrate her international work experience in her work at the University of Waikato Library, primarily in the area of interlibrary loans and distance services. She initiated and is Convenor of LA-SIG (Library Assistants Special Interest Group) for LIANZA (Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa) and a committee member and Branchlines editor for the Waikato/Bay or Plenty region of LIANZA.

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