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>