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Exchange of Experience
at OCLC, Birmingham January 30th 2002
An Exchange of Experience Workshop took place
on January 2002 at the premises of OCLC
Europe.
View
PowerPoint presentations from the event.
MUSIC
INTERLENDING - SOME NOTES AND A LOT OF ISSUES (Birmingham
1998)
"Music is silly! I hate music!". While Leonard
Bernstein had his tongue in his cheek when he wrote that,
I suspect its a sentiment that many librarians sympathise
with when confronted with trying to supply printed music and
sets of performance materials through the interlending system.
Why does music provoke this reaction? - why can it be such
a difficult material to handle? It is because the problems
inherent in music materials cause a lot of the difficulties
experienced with the interlending of music before the process
even starts.
Because music is an international product it
can be very difficult to identify the exact piece or version
that a borrower is seeking. A piece of music may have alternative
titles in several different languages; it may be an extract
from a larger work. If it is a well-known piece it will almost
certainly be issued in several different editions by different
publishers and in a variety of arrangements for different
combinations of voices and/or instruments. A good example
of this is Bach's famous 'Jesu joy of man's desiring' which
is currently available in the UK alone in 66 different editions
and versions including arrangements for a military band, a
saxophone quartet and one for 12 handbells!
Even when a piece of music has been identified
correctly, more problems occur because what the borrower asks
for doesn't match the entries in the catalogues the librarian
is using to locate the item. 'Jesu joy of man's desiring'
is quite helpfully listed under "Jesu..." in most RLS's vocal
sets catalogues, but many library catalogues list it under
its AACR2 uniform title of 'Cantatas; no. 147, Herz und Mund
und Tat und Leben. - Wohl mir, dass ich Jesum habe'.
Like many specialised subjects, music requires
an expert provider if provision is to be successful. The research
for the 1993 Library and Information Plan for Music found
that many problems with the successful supply of printed music
stem from a lack of trained, specialist music librarians and
where specialist staff are not employed to manage music services,
the evidence is that users' demands are not being satisfied
or that the burden of this role is being passed to other authorities.
This situation has not been helped by the effects of local
government reorganisation over the last two or three years
where there are now a significant number of small unitary
authorities without any music staff, expertise in music, catalogues
or even music collections.
Do these things matter? Is music interlending
that important anyway? The scale of music interlending between
libraries in the UK the majority of which is for sets of vocal
scores and orchestral parts, has been estimated as totalling
three million items a year, and in a snapshot survey of sets
issued for use during September and October 1997, IAML(UK)
[UK Branch of the International Association of Music Libraries
Archives and Documentation Centres. ] found that 23 public
libraries alone had issued 6000 vocal sets made up of more
than 136,000 vocal scores.
One of the reasons the interlending of music
sets is so successful is the number of catalogues which have
been produced. The second edition of the British Union Catalogue
of Orchestral Sets was published in 1989 by BLDSC in co-operation
with IAML(UK), with a supplement published in 1995. BUCOS
lists more than 10,000 different orchestral sets held by 68
public and academic libraries throughout the UK. Vocal sets
are listed in catalogues published by SWRLS (1986), LASER
(1989), NWRLS (1995), and by WMRLS, EMRLS and NRLS (all 1997).
While Scotland and Wales have only a handful of vocal sets
collections and Ireland has none at all, the most important
omission from this list is AYHLS which at its regional music
library at Wakefield has one of the largest collections of
performance sets in the country.
Over the last five years a considerable amount
of effort has gone into trying to produce a national catalogue
of vocal sets. LINC, IAML(UK), CONARLS, and in particular
WMRLS and its Director, Geoff Warren, have been key players
in trying to create a national vocal sets database, not least
through the WMRLS DFPLS funded "Access to Vocal Sets" project
(see FIL Newsletter Issue 25, June 1997). Unfortunately further
progress has been halted by the disappearance of central funding,
but IAML(UK) is continuing to explore alternative strategies.
Lottery funding has been considered but rejected and plans
are currently underway to investigate the creation of a national
database along lines similar to those of EARL's MagNet collaborative
serials service.
Perhaps the issue that has caused most concern
in music library circles over the last decade (apart from
the lack of any progress in automating BSDS's Music Library
catalogue) is that an increasing number of libraries now charge
other libraries for the interloan of music sets. This has
meant that many libraries which do not charge, now refuse
either to borrow from or tend to those that do charge. This
situation was exacerbated a few years ago when Kent, which
has a very important collection of music sets, opted out of
the sets interlending system completely and started to lend
its sets directly to choirs and orchestras wherever they were
based in the UK. A further issue which irritates some music
librarians concerns libraries who borrow sets free of charge
through the interlending system but then impose a loan charge
when they lend those sets to their own borrowers. Such changes
to the music interlending system have caused considerable
concern at national level as many library authorities feel
that this piecemeal fragmentation of the music interlending
system is damaging the whole fabric of interlending throughout
the country.
To end on a more upbeat note, one of the latest
JISC eLib projects is called Music Libraries Online. The aim
of this project is to link the OPACs of all nine UK music
conservatoire libraries, using Z39.50, to create a virtual
union catalogue for music materials which will be available
via the world wide web. Music Libraries Online started in
January this year and the importance of this project for the
interlending community at large is that one of its essential
elements is to incorporate an interlending system with requests
placed through an email interface As another aim of the project
is to investigate the possibility of adding the music catalogues
of public and academic libraries to the network, and as BSDS
has expressed an interest in participating, it can be seen
that if this project is successful it could revolutionise
the interlending of music materials in the UK.
FIL
Exchange of Experience Workshop, Nottingham 1996
This workshop attracted 35 ILL staff from as
far afield as Bristol and Plymouth. Three speakers from the
academic, public and business sectors outlined the ILL services
offered by their particular institutions (edited transcripts
follow). This initiated a lively debate on a range of subjects
of current concern to interlending and document delivery departments.
In addition, Bob Pickering from BLDSC spoke
about news from Boston Spa including the new billing accounts
and how staff get the staples out of the return parcels!
There were speakers from Loughborough
University, Nottinghamshire County Library,
and Astra Charnwood
Loughborough
University, formerly Loughborough University of Technology,
began life as a College of Advanced Technology, became a university
in 1966 and then merged with the College of Education. The
university has built up areas of acknowledged expertise in
sports science, human sciences, aero- and auto-engineering
and library and information studies, and this is reflected
in our library collections.
The Pilkington Library was purpose built in
1980 as a teaching library; it houses the Library and Information
Studies department which cooperates closely with the library
itself and serves approximately 14,600 readers of whom 2,000
are staff, 600 are outside registered users and the rest are
students and non-academic staff. The stock stands at just
over half a million items.
The Interlibrary loans section has its own service
point for all enquiries and we have two full time and one
half time member of staff, consisting of myself and two library
assistants. We receive approximately 12,000 requests a year
from our own readers, 10% of which are in stock, and 1,700
requests from other libraries. We have been using the Lancaster
ILL system since August 1992, when the BLCMP ILL module was
abandoned owing to problems. Now that TALIS has relaunched
the ILL module we are watching with interest to see how things
go. We are very aware of the advantages of an integrated system
but at present the merits of Lancaster outweigh the disadvantages
of a standalone system.
The majority of our requests come from staff
and postgraduate researchers. Nearly 70% of requests are for
serial articles, 12% each from conferences and monographs.
We do not impose any limits on the number of requests but
each department is charged £5.00 per item for their
own requests. Requests fell by 30% when charges were imposed
5 years ago but have very gradually been increasing again.
As each department decides who is authorised to place orders,
all requests must be checked to ensure that the correct authorisation
has been obtained. At the end of each month we invoice departments
for all satisfied requests and as we make no extra charge
for urgent action and international requests we do not publicise
these services widely.
In common with all library readers our users
want everything immediately and so we have introduced performance
targets for dealing with requests. Any request received before
4pm should be checked and transmitted that day. If further
bibliographical checking is necessary then it should be transmitted
before noon the following day. Reports returned from BL and
other libraries should be dealt with on the same day. Inevitably
this is subject to slippage at times of holiday or sickness,
but we do have a fairly good record. Last year we conducted
a survey on supply times over a three month period, and were
pleased to note that 70% of all items were received within
5 working days.
The amount and depth of bibliographic checking
can be variable; at very busy times we may be slightly less
thorough, but we regularly use our own abstracts, BIDS and
First Search. Many of our requests originate fron CD-ROM searches
and we often refer back to these. Readers will be asked to
supply a copy of their reference if we cannot trace it, though
we often apply to BL in hope. Books and photocopies are delivered
by the EMTS early each morning, checked in and letters notifying
arrival sent to readers and photocopies sent in the internal
mail. Items for loan must be collected in person as we require
the reader's signature. 50p a day overdue fines are charged
but we do try to be as flexible and understanding as possible.
The prospect of the BL charge of £67.00 plus our administrative
charge of £10.00 usually brings the speedy return of
an overdue volume.
Developments that we are looking at for the
future include taking part in two E-lib projects, FIDDO and
LAMDA. The FIDDO project has unfortunately been delayed by
personnel and technical problems but when these are resolved
we will be testing EI and UMI document delivery systems. We
hope to become involved with LAMDA within the
Maintaining statistics seems to be an inevitable
part of any work today. Monthly statistics for EMRLS and annual
ones for SCONUL are very easy to generate with the Lancaster
system. As well as those available on the statistics menu,
we can make use of the ACCESS language for more specific lists.
We produce tables for the Academic Services Managers each
month to keep them up to date with the numbers of requests
for their departments. These lists only show names and numbers,
no bibliographic details, in order to comply with the Data
Protection Act.
The number of outgoing loans has been fairly
stable over the last few years, between 1,500 and 2,000. We
did experience an increase with the introduction of BLCMP
which indicated locations. We do encourage libraries to go
through BL first but we are fairly flexible and appreciate
that the whole system runs on co-operation and goodwill. We
are a relatively small team within the library but we hope
to serve our readers efficiently and quickly. We are certainly
very pleased with both the Lancaster ILL system and the service
we receive from the British Library; as we obtain 95% of our
requests from them our good name depends on their efficiency.
Jenny Chambers
ILL Librarian
Loughborough University
Nottinghamshire
County Library serves a population of just over one million,
60% of whom are registered as libary members. We have 80 libraries,
8 mobile libraries, a Schools Library Service, a household
service and we also serve a variety of hospitals, prisons,
homes and centres. Our current bookstock is over 2 million
and, very importantly for reservations and interlending purposes,
we have a non-fiction store of 117,00 items and a fiction
store of 20,300 items. Our book issues for last year (1995/96)
numbered 9.8 million and we took over 131,000 book requests.
At £ 2.1 million for the current year our bookfund is
in a steady decline which looks set to continue.
We have a fully automated stock management system,
IBM BookPlus and 47 libraries are on the system accounting
for 85% of issues. 17 of these libraries have OPAC terminals
and a further 15 have or are shortly to have dial-up links
for enquiry purposes. Orders for all bookstock are automated
on the system using the BookPlus acquisitions package.
The Reservations and Interlending Team operates
as a centralised unit for the county handling all requests
for our readers which cannot be satisfied from stock. They
also supply books requested by library authorities outside
Nottinghamshire. The team is a small one consisting of a Senior
Library Assistant (full-time), plus a full-time and a part-time
Clerical Assistant. Between them they handle 5,700 reservations
per year from Nottinghamshire readers. About 80% of these
(5,000) progress through to the interlending network; the
remainder are either bought, 'regretted' or found to be in
stock after all! Our success rate via interlending is around
81% and typically items are supplied as follows: 48% from
BLDSC 26% direct from other libraries using BL forms 22% from
EMRLS
The remainder come from other libraries such
as the London Library; we rarely apply abroad because of the
cost. The majority of the requests are for adult non-fiction
books, although we do also apply for journal articles, music
scores and orchestral parts. We rarely borrow fiction because
of the strength of our Fiction Store.
Before sending requests through to the Reservations
and Interlending Unit our libraries will have checked for
bibliographical details in BBIP and on our own BookPlus database.
We then check: BookPlus again!; Global Bookbank on CD-ROM
as necessary; Libris Unity Database (on PC) which includes
BNB, Boston Spa Books, EMRLS holdings, NWRLS and others; BM
catalogue on CD-ROM; Books in English on microfiche. Two years
ago we moved from a completely manual, paper-based operation
to a fully automated one when we implemented the Lancaster
ILL system with an ARTTEL2 link to BLDSC. This records all
our interlibrary loan applications, is virtually paperless
and has saved us a great deal of staff time. Together with
the introduction of bibliographies on CD-ROM and the growing
sophisitcation of the BookPlus database it has enabled us
to save 1.5 clerical posts.
During the current year we expect to spend in
the region of £ 13,790, mainly on BL forms, but also
on subscriptions such as to the London Library. Our bookfund
this year is 15% less in cash terms than it was 3 years ago;
accordingly we are able to spend slightly less on BL forms
each year and of course they increase in cost annually. We
find it necessary, therefore, to control the overall amount
of interlending and have introduced a number of guidelines
to restrict overuse by a handful of readers: we do not apply
to BL for material in print costing less than £ 15.00;
we allow a maximum of 12 BL loans per reader per year; no
renewals; we do not reapply for the same book for the same
reader within 12 months; we do not apply outside our own region
or to BL for very ephemeral works, e.g. The Amyityville Horror,
The Happy Hooker.
We receive almost exactly the same number of
applications from other authorities as we make for our own
readers, i.e. approx. 5,700, and are able to satisfy 52% of
these. This figure is so low because we pass requests straight
on to the next location if our copy is on loan. These loans
can be broken down as follows: 64% are supplied to EMRLS libraries
36% to other UK libraries
Not surprisingly, and no doubt in common with
many public library authorities at present, our main causes
for concern all centre on the budget and the cost of BL forms.
We currently charge 60p per reservation and strictly speaking
may not charge any premium for requests which require a BL
form.
Another potential cause for anxiety is use by
academics, students and others who have access to specialist
library facilities. As a public library service we are required
to meet the needs of everybody who lives works or studies
in Nottinghamshire. It would be inappropriate and financially
impossible for us to compete with academic libraries and we
only purchase specialist material if it is also of interest
to the general reader. However, university libraries are also
experiencing budget cuts and one of our local universities
has introduced quotas and a charge for interlibrary loans
higher than our reservation fee. This could be interesting!
To end on a more positive note, there is a great
deal to look forward to in the future use of the Internet
and the potential it affords for further streamlining inter
library loans procedures.
Anne Corin
Principal Bibliographical Officer
Support Services
Nottinghamshire County Library
Astra
Charnwood is a UK subsidiary of Astra AB, a Swedish pharmaceutical
company. The Research and Development facilities were acquired
from Fisons in May 1995 with 700 employees transferring to
Astra Charnwood. Since then the headcount has expanded rapidly
and currently stands at about 900. We have a highly qualified
workforce with 60% graduates or PhDs working mainly in Research
and Development although we also provide a service to other
departments such as marketing, engineering, environmental
affairs and regulatory affairs. Research is largely focused
on novel approaches to diseases in two key areas - inflammatory
and immunological diseases such as asthma and rheumatoid arthritis
and selected cardiovascular diseases such as ischaemia.
The R&D Information Centre is located in
a new building opened by the Prime Minister in 1993 and its
function is to support the work of Astra Charnwood by providing
its users with timely, concise and effective information.
There are currently seventeen people employed within the department
split into two systems teams, a Scientific Information team
providing current awareness services and the Library and Information
Resources team which has responsibility for journals, books,
document supply, CD-ROM search systems etc.
The library subscribes to approximately 350
journal titles. We have a subscription to ADONIS which gives
access to approximately 660 additional titles with the full
articles available for printing on demand. There is also a
book stock of over 5,000 titles.
Since January 1995 we have used an in-house
system 1032 programme for our interlibrary loans known as
LIBDOC which automates the request process from the user's
desktop. This has three core modules for requesting journal
articles, full journal issues or "others"- monographs, theses,
standards, conference proceedings etc. When first logging
on to the system the user is asked for their VAX username
and they then have to input their personal details; these
details are saved but can be amended if necessary. To order
a journal article or full journal issue the user is first
prompted to input part of the title. This is checked against
a database of titles and if the one they want is found they
can select it and input volume, issue etc. details. After
all the request details have been completed, users are presented
with a copyright declaration form to which they have to agree
by typing "yes" before the request is acccepted. To order
books etc. the user is presented with a free text field in
which to input all the details they know about their request.
The file is processed once a day at about 3.00pm.
The first step involves an automatic check against our own
journals holdings and ADONIS. A list of the day's requests
is printed, papers from ADONIS are retrieved and the ones
identified as stock items are checked to see if they are actually
available from the library. Editing of the file takes place
at this stage, then the requests are batch processed. Automatic
emails are generated informing people that their request has
been sent to the British Library or is in stock. Request numbers
are then assigned automatically and the file transmitted to
the British Library via ARTTEL.
Receipt and return of items is a simple process
of inputting the British Library number enabling confirmation
of these transactions. Received items are distributed via
the internal mail. The system also allows for the input of
BL reply codes which are received daily by email, to keep
users informed of the progress of their requests. Mail messages
are automatically generated depending on the reply code, for
example to advise a user that there will be a delay or asking
for more information.
When ordering, users have the option to stipulate
an Urgent Action. If they choose this option their requests
are immedialtely emailed to the library account rather than
being processed at the end of the day. The high degree of
automation we have achieved means we have cut the receipt
time of non-urgent requests to 2-3 days. Out of a total of
approximately 4,000 requests a year the majority are satisfied
by the British Library - probably in the region of 90%.
For items the British Library is unable to supply
we do use a number of other sources. We have accounts with
Uncover and also with UMI and Ebscodoc for document delivery
via First Search. These sources are valuable for some of the
more obscure American journals and also where people want
more than one article from an issue or the article is over
50 pages, as they are copyright paid. Uncover is particularly
useful in those cases where a journal is unavailable because
the British Library has imposed a loan ban - the contents
pages of the issue are printed and the user identifies specific
articles for document delivery. The Royal Society of Chemistry
is another good source of supply, particularly for very old
chemical books and journals and documents in translation
Although there are no formal co-operative arrangements
with other Astra sites, we do have a journal listing of all
titles worldwide and occasionally we appeal to other sites
for help and also supply documents when asked. As far as the
future is concerned, we aim to maintain a good collection
of core journals and books whilst monitoring and evaluating
document providers to ensure we meet the needs of our users.
Susan Cooper
ILL Librarian
Astra Charnwood |
guidelines