FLICC Interlibrary Loan and Union List Update  


The following information is taken from a written update supplied by OCLC to the networks for upcoming meetings. After the meetings in mid-December, we may have further information or clarification regarding these updates. If you have questions or comments about any of the following, email them to [email protected]. Messages I receive directly at [email protected] by Dec. 7 I will take to the meeting. -- Lynn McDonald, FEDLINK ([email protected])

DOCUMENT SUPPLIERS: EBSCO Doc ceased operation in September, and UMI's Information Store will suspend the majority of their services effective December 18th. (Both also cease on FirstSearch.)

OCLC expects that CISTI (Canadian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information; OCLC symbol CAI) and BLDSC (British Library Document Supply Centre; OCLC symbol BRI) will be able to absorb the requests that UMI processed.

CISTI is available under FEDLINK (Vendor ID "RC"). It will also accept payment for documents via OCLC's IFM service.

To improve their service BLDSC has announced that they will be accepting requests that use the OCLC ILL Fee Management Service. BLDSC is also inaugurating a new rush service on the OCLC ILL System. They plan more information about this service at the ALA Midwinter conference in Philadelphia.

More information about OCLC document suppliers is available on their home page at http://www.oclc.org/oclc/ill/supplier/toc.htm . OCLC continues to seek additional document suppliers to serve the needs of our users.

FIXED-FEE PRICING FOR ILL: Development is underway for a full implementation of ILL Fixed Fee for fiscal year 1999/2000. All libraries that have had ILL activity during calendar year 1998 will be eligible to receive an ILL Fixed Fee quote.

ILL DIRECT REQUEST: The ILL Direct Request has had a tremendous impact in those libraries that have implemented the service. Some libraries have witnessed a complete turnaround in the volume of ILL request that staff must process versus those request that are processed by ILL Direct Request.

In August OCLC installed enhancements to the service that included:

  • duplicate detection
  • the history function
  • the Direct Produce message file category. ILL Direct Request will be enhanced to process journal article requests. No firm date has been established for that enhancement.

    OCLC will be sponsoring an ILL Direct Request promotion during from January 1, 1999 through March 31, 1999. Any institution that has activated the FirstSearch/ILL link is eligible to participate in this promotion, and letters were send in early November institutions already using the link.

    ILL FEE MANAGEMENT: ILL Fee Management usage continues to grow. Over 1140 libraries used ILL Fee Management to handle more than 1.5 million dollars in transactions in the first four months of the fiscal year.

    ILL MICROENHANCER FOR WINDOWS: Development of ILL Micro Enhancer for Windows Ver 2.0 is proceeding. The product should be released to user by the second quarter of calendar year 1999. The next version will be a 32-bit program requiring Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 or higher, and a Pentium-class pc. It will not support the Multidrop dedicated line access.

    OCLC ILL FULL-TEXT OPTION: OCLC plans to introduce the ILL Full-text option in January 1999 as a feature within the OCLC Interlibrary Loan (ILL) System. Full-text option will allow ILL staff the option of ordering full-text documents from suppliers through the OCLC ILL interface using existing workflows and procedures. ILL staff will search for bibliographic records, display holdings, create and produce ILL requests using existing procedures and features including custom holdings. Articles will be billed through ILL Fee Management.

    LCLibrary of Congress
    Library of Congress Help Desk     		FLICCFederal Library and
    Information Center Committee
    Comments: [email protected]