[11451] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
LC joins WLN ILL Network
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (info@wln.com)
Mon Jul 7 20:17:40 1997
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 10:27:34 -0500
From: info@wln.com
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Saturday, June 28, 1997
For Immediate Release. . .
LC Announces Participation in the WLN ILL Network
The Library of Congress and WLN, Inc., announce, effective July 1, 1997,
the participation of the Library of Congress as an online provider of ILL
requests to WLN member libraries. WLN, the Library of Congress' Loan
Division, and a small group of pilot libraries in Alaska and Washington
began testing the online submission of ILL requests to LC in May, 1997.
The success of this pilot has led to full implementation for all WLN
participating libraries.
Chris Wright, Head of LC's Loan Division, said, "Adding WLN to our
online correspondents will create a new borrowing link for some 120
libraries in the Pacific Northwest, . libraries that previously requested
by mail or fax, if at all."
The Loan Division has asked WLN to encourage its online members to request
material directly from LC by means of the ILL system, which is more
efficient to process and results in a quicker delivery time to the patron.
WLN libraries will be allowed to borrow items from LC that are not otherwise
available within their local area or items which have no holding libraries
in the WLN database. This new arrangement will encourage libraries to go
directly to LC if it is likely that LC holds the item in its collection.
As part of the WLN-LC pilot project, LC has reformulated its definition
of a "Library of Last Resort" to encourage WLN libraries to forward
requests to LC over the network for items LC is likely to own and that
are not located at other WLN participating institutions. The intent is
to redefine the requirement that libraries exhaust "local and regional
resources" to mean an electronic, rather than a geographic, region.
All participants in the pilot project worked together to formulate a set
of guidelines for when WLN members should send a request to LC. Chris
Wright noted that "Part of the problem lies in the inability of requesting
libraries to know whether material represented by a perfectly good LC MARC
record is really held by LC." Guidelines have been developed for all WLN
libraries to follow.
BJ Gardner, Alaska State Library, reported that, by using the new
guidelines, she had an estimated 65% fill rate from the Library of
Congress. "People are absolutely thrilled to receive items from the
Library of Congress," she said, "And the staff at LC were really
very helpful. In addition, LC's practice of sending the items by
FedEx really sped up delivery."
WLN operates a library network in the United States and serves many
libraries and organizations of all types and sizes throughout North
America. WLN products and services include an online bibliographic
database, Internet services, CD-ROM catalogs, database preparation
/authority control services, and collection assessment services.
[http://www.wln.com]
For further information about WLN's ILL subsystem or this
press release, please contact:
Margi Mann Chris Wright
ILL Coordinator Library of Congress Loan Division
WLN Washington, DC 20540
360-923-4033 or 1-800-342-5956 202-707-5345
mmann@wln.com cwri@loc.gov
