The Value of IFLA Vouchers

Although I imagine many UK interlenders are aware of IFLA vouchers and how they are used I would boldly suggest that there are just as many who are not. Having attended a number of FIL Conferences in the last few years I have met many people new to the world of Interending.  Those in the UK know that most requests can be fulfilled by the British Library and by other libraries generously supplying this material to us.  There is however the (usually single digit) percentage of requests that need additional steps in order to be fulfilled.  Of course some use the British Library to find it for them.  Since I have not used the British Library’s ‘Get It For Me’ service I can’t comment on its effectiveness in fulfilling requests that can’t be fulfilled by a UK supplier.   

King’s College London uses OCLC WorldShare ILL to fulfill a decent number of those requests that can’t be located in the UK.  OCLC ‘s stronghold is still North America. Although increasingly users worldwide are subscribing to WorldShare ILL (and supplying through it) what do you do for the large number of libraries worldwide that don’t use OCLC?  In my experience you can still use IFLA vouchers.  The IFLA voucher system has been around since the mid 90s and was the idea of Graham Cornish, then the UAP (Universal Availability of Publications) Programme Officer.  Graham mentioned in his keynote presentation at the 2013 Interlend Conference that initially the idea of a voucher system was met with considerable skepticism.  The system was trialled and over time it became incredibly successful.  It’s successful to a point where it really is one of the most globally recognised ways to share library resources.  I think the beauty of vouchers is found in their simplicity.  IFLA vouchers have the same value worldwide.  They can be purchased from IFLA HQ and they can be ‘sold back’ to IFLA also.  There’s no real reason to do this though unless you find yourself with a considerable excess of the vouchers.

Further information on how they work and how to obtain them can be found here:

http://www.ifla.org/voucher-scheme/general-info

There’s a great article from 1995 written by Sara Gould called “A voucher scheme to simplify payment for international interlibrary transactions” in the Interlending & Document Supply journal (DOI - 10.1108/02641619510154933).  This is accessible only to those people or institutions that subscribe to the journal.  It talks about the scheme as it was emerging and explains the rationale behind it.  Of course you could try and make an IFLA request for it if you don’t subscribe.

The current value of IFLA vouchers is EUR 8 for a full voucher (which are green) and EUR 4 for half a voucher (which are red).  In a sense though the true value of an IFLA voucher is the pioneering spirit they represent.  They ask the library professional to traverse the globe in search of hard to find resources and to work collaboratively with other library professionals in order to share resources worldwide.

Mark Kluzek

Musings from a wet and windy Hertfordshire

As I sit here in our 'open plan' warehouse/office/book store, listening to the monsoon lashing down on our tin roof and watching through the loading bay doors the rain gusting about in every direction, I wonder 'Why are public library services considered the poor relation in the library world and more importantly why is ILL an added extra?'

Don't get me wrong, I think that Hertfordshire has a wonderful public library service that I'm proud to work for - our staff are dedicated to helping all comers, we have a wonderful Mobile library service.

We offer all sorts of online services, including ebooks, online audiobooks, language courses, online magazines, an enewsletter, access to all sorts of online reference books, services and even online courses in every subject you can imagine. But still ILL is not advertised, never fully understood by either the staff or customers and is still considered to be a premium service. Something that's expensive to do and to use and difficult to understand how to use it!

All this despite us making it easier to request as everything is done online via our library management system and yes we do charge but it's a small amount in the great scheme of things.

Just look at some of  the things we offer, a service where Joe Public can send in a request for a book they heard about, read about, saw on the television, not sure of the author or title but they know we'll get it for them. Or we have the Joe Public who knows exactly the book he wants, right down to the revised edition, with the forward by Sir Know-it-all published in Timbucktoo - but not the one published in January but the 2nd revised published on the third friday of July - yep, we'll get that for you.

That of course covers fiction and non fiction, don't worry how old the book is, how obscure, how expensive, we'll track it down somehow for you. (thank you OCLC WorldShare ILL) The US a boon for those wanting to borrow that item published in 1780 or actually worth £500 - no chance from anywhere in this country but you can guarantee a US location will lend it and usually accompanied by a lovely postcard from the lenders saying how wonderful it is to hear from us 'across the pond'.

Then of course we also supply large print and talking books.... and yes Mrs Smith we can get you that talking book on Cassette rather than CD, despite most authorities abandoning their cassette collections many years ago. We'll find it somewhere for you, even if we end up buying a second hand copy from Amazon Marketplace!

Of course along with large print, we also supply Giant print, braille and Moon - Giant print chick lit is amazing to see - so many volumes for one book!

Next we receive a request for children's picture books and stories in Hebrew - 'just 20 or so would be good, for a 4 year old boy and 7 year old girl. Whilst you are getting that collection can you also get a collection of 15 fiction titles in Bulgarian for a 80 year old lady who only likes romances, oh and a small collection of books on psychology in Malayalam too'. Of course no problems, we are a public service and will supply.... and if you are wondering, yes all of those requests were and are real. (Although I am still sorry for the poor man at the local prison who wanted books in Somali and at the time all we could get were books about Camels - including, he informed us a book of poetry to a camel. He was still very grateful that we could actually get something for him in his language! Thank heavens for Bright Books and their wonderful language service.

This is all just one small part of the services we offer here in ILL in Hertfordshire and I'm sure this is duplicated across the country. So why then do people not know what we do, why do we find it so hard to advertise/market ourselves and our services?

Maybe it is time to stand up and say loud and proud

'I am an inter-library loan person and I can deliver'

...or maybe I should just attend the FIL Conference this year for some ideas on marketing as this years conference is :

Northern Exposure: Marketing and Bench Marking for the Future - 23rd and 24th June.

Well, the rains stopped beating down on the tin roof, we can all hear ourselves think until the next wave comes over, so best get back to phoning round to find that book with the green cover about a welsh district nurse ' you know the one, I borrowed it about 20 years ago - can you get it for me again'.

Tracey Jackson - a proud Inter-Library Loan person

Hertfordshire Libraries

Holidays Holidays!

Holidays, Holidays!

With the weather here being pretty dismal, even for a British winter, thoughts and conversation here at work often strays to the subject of holidays.

And that got me thinking about our books and some of the exotic places, near and far that we have sent them.

I have offered on many occasions to accompany the books personally on their voyages but alas the idea didn’t go down so well with the Librarian.

However, just in this first week of February I could have accompanied a book to Cyprus, New York, Carolina or Pennsylvania – although given the current weather in the US perhaps I would have opted to go to Cyprus.

Either way, this year it seems that the books in our library will certainly be more traveled than me!

  

Definitely think I may have to go to Cyprus to bring the item back though:)

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terykats/5556268447/">TeryKats</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">cc</a>