Well.

Christmas is nearly here! How does that work then? We all start complaining when we see Christmas things vying for shelf room in the shops with the increasing amounts of Halloween paraphernalia and then allofasudden its here! Or nearly anyway.

In Huddersfield Inter-library Loans land we are still liking Clioweb, our ILL system that utilizes the BLDSS API. Being able to check holdings at BL and on COPAC as an intrinsic part of processing the request is FAB and then being able to check actual availability at BL...well… the team are still in raptures. The irony has not been lost on them, shall we say, that  since we merged our own catalogue with our e-resources search engine, it has actually been easier to search everyone else’s stuff than it is our own! Though our guy has been working on that and it’s getting better. On Clio we’ve also had a few problems with search speeds, but the suppliers have improved that a bit too and are still working to make it even better. Sending a request off after it has been matched with an actual record at the BL is so easy that a bit of complacency has even crept in recently, and we’ve fired off a couple where, as is inevitable with any catalogue search, the record returned wasn’t actually an exact match for what we wanted. The adage “Read the screen carefully” still holds true with the best of systems!

We’ve been watching the new University Learning and Leisure Centre, now branded Student Central, develop out of the window. It’s nearly finished and due to open in the New Year. It’s one of those modern buildings that lights up Multi-colours and they can project all sorts onto it. We’ve been having our own Christmas light show as they’ve been testing it.

We’ve also been trying to join in this year’s Christmas Jumper craze. Bridget Jones or was it Colin Firth? Eat your heart out! Even FIL the Frog was getting in on the act as I was enjoying my proof copy of the FIL journal. A modest donation is winging its way to Save the Children as we speak!

Well Hope you all have a well deserved rest over Christmas, I think we probably all deserve it.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND HAVE A FANTASTIC 2014

from the Interloaners at the University of Huddersfield

Cheers

Chris

Customer Services Librarian

University of Huddersfield

Conference thoughts

Library Camp 2013

Along with a couple of hundred other ‘ librarians’ (I use the term loosely, although we were mainly librarians!), I attended Library Camp 2013 last Saturday. Our host was the new library in Birmingham.

Several people have blogged about the day, including our former Chair, Gareth Johnson: http://llordllama.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/hello-campers-2013-edition/

As I’m busy helping to organise Interlend 2014, it was interesting to see how the un-conference style worked. Suffice to say that I don’t think ‘the rule of two feet’ would go down too well with our speakers. But I could be wrong…….

I suppose the main difference is that Library Camp is attended at your own expense and in your own time, whereas Interlend is more usually work-related. To that end, the committee works hard to listen to delegate feedback and make the conference relevant to the Interlending issues of the day. Which is why we are always happy to hear from you, whether or not you are a member of FIL, and why we try to attract as many interesting speakers and workshops as we can around the conference theme.

So please think about it when the call for speakers goes out. And save the dates in June 2014!

If we don’t hear from you, or don’t meet you at events, we can’t reflect your interests.

And we’d hate you to use your feet and walk.

Worldshare Trial at Goldsmiths library

I haven't managed to post here in a long while, but the FIL committee have been very forgiving! This term I was seconded to the REF2014 team, and as you can imagine it's been hectic up to this Friday's deadline. Our institutional repository is managed by library staff, and had a large part to play in getting the data ready for submission (which was eventually successful!).

As I explained in my last post, Goldsmiths are currently trialling OCLC Worldshare as a solution for our international requests. Because of my secondment I was only getting a little bit of practice at using it, and my line manager, who was covering my work and managing serials, didn't have time to explore all the functionality Worldshare offers. This week however, we both took park in a Webinar with a member of staff from OCLC who took us through the processes of sending borrowing requests and answered any questions we had along the way. I'm still not sure I'm convinced there isn't too much duplication of effort in using Worldshare. And personally I prefer just sending an email to international libraries and getting a full response from a human, rather than BL-style reply codes. But I'm ready to be convinced by Worldshare and will persevere! As always I'll keep you updated.

-Lucy Lambe

Doing things we've always done, or why change is sometimes difficult and a long time coming...

So for those of you who've seen me recently you may have thought that I'm more absent minded / stressed / ranty / wrinkled than in former days, and there is a good reason for this - my husband and I are trying to buy our first house.

For those of you who have not yet decided to take the plunge, let me tell you, you cannot imagine the immaculate combination of stressful and hectic arranging of things and incredibly long periods of hanging around waiting for other people to do things. It's a hurry up and wait roller coaster of epic proportions - Alton Towers would be proud.

We seal the legal documents with wax - we've always done it like that...

Well the one thing I think most would agree on is that the legal aspects of the process seem shrouded in mystery and take what seems like a ridiculous amount of time in this age of instant electronic communication and mobile technology. Now I should say at this point that our solicitor has been great - she always responds to emails and phone calls promptly, is organised about chasing our case and has been great at keeping us appraised of the situation, but often she has not been able to pass significant stages in the process because another solicitor in the chain won't return phone calls / doesn't have the file available / can't be arsed (OK I made the last one up....) It feels to someone on the outside of the process that it's a bit outdated because they've always done it that way, and no one has ever thought, "let's try doing something different, it might work better that way."

So what has this all got to do with interlending I hear you ask...

Well let's get this straight, I have no idea abut the legal complexities of purchasing property, so although I like to rant about it I can't really comment on the way it should be done. However, something happened last week that made me think twice about the way we've always done something in our inter-library loans team.

It's a small thing but we always apply to the British Library for items first as a matter of course - only if they can't supply do we search for other locations. Where the BL can't supply, this does undeniably cause a delay to the reader, but I was happy in the idea that the time we saved searching at the beginning made up for this delay where it happened. At the recent FIL@BL St Pancras event at the British Library conference centre (very good ginger biscuits) I found that about a two thirds majority of attendees search for locations first and then apply to a library they are pretty certain can supply. This was a surprise to me and I could see how doing things this way would  mean more items arrive quicker. Change is sometimes difficult and a long time coming but now I'm thinking "let's try doing something different, it might work better that way."

Natalie
FIL membership secretary

     

Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes? –What kind of ILL detective are you?

                                

Anyone who is a fan of fictional detectives will know that David Suchet is hanging up his famous moustache and giving his little grey cells a much earned rest as he bids a farewell to his character Hercule Poirot.

 I am a bit of a fan of detective stories in general and I always enjoy the way the detective unravels all the evidence and finds things that no-one else seems to find. I also realised that this is why I enjoy my work in interlibrary loans because sometimes I get to be the detective. A reader brings in an obscure citation or half a citation and says ‘this is vital for me, please can you try and find it’. And then you’re off on your own detective adventure, searching databases, sometimes even trying to track down the whereabouts of authors.

 It is always both satisfying and gratifying when you find an item for a reader that is from half way across the world and even better when the other library says ‘yes of course you can borrow it’. Sad case though I might be:  it always makes my day. Just this week we received four photocopies of chapters from an obscure proceedings, only available in the Czech Republic. It’s really great to see an international spirit of co-operation in interlending.

Anyway must get back to work- have just received some interesting items from a mysterious place called Boston Spa :)

   

 

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ollieolarte/3028314931/">olarte.ollie</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">cc</a>