Farewell FIL & Cheers!

This is my last ever post as FIL Chair - hankies at the ready!

I'm looking forward to Edinburgh, and hope that the programme, as well as the surroundings, lives up to expectations!

This year it was impractical to organise as visit, however with a slightly earlier finish on day 1, I hope that those who are staying will be able to at least venture on to the Royal Mile.
It is literally opposite the hotel, so do try and get a taste of Edinburgh! If any of you see any nice tartan trousers on your travels, be sure to let Chris Beevers our FIL Secretary know!

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time on the committee and will be sorry to step down, however I’m sure with new blood and renewed enthusiasm the FIL committee will continue to thrive and prosper!

Cheers!

Marie

FIL Chair

A love letter to KVK

I am writing this as a former Interlending and Document Delivery Officer at King's College London and soon to be former member of the Forum for Interlending Committee. I will genuinely miss being involved in sharing resources (and ideas) as well as supporting the excellent work of FIL.

I thought I might write my last blog post with an anecdote that will possibly segue into a ramble.

A few years ago now whilst working at King's College London my department received a visit from a librarian who had visited King's under the Erasmus scheme.  I think he might have been from Estonia.  Anyway, he had a chat with all the different teams in the Information Resources department.  When he got to the Interlending and Document Delivery team we ended up having a talk about his interest in photography.  He'd travelled a lot around Eastern Europe taking photos of trains and railway stations if I can recall rightly.  It was very interesting so we ended up going off topic for the most of our discussion.  Towards the end though I think I expressed my frustration about trying to find decent union catalogues.  It was at this time that he showed me something that really impressed me.  It was the KVK or the Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog.  

Now I have no idea who created it, I have no idea what the motivation was.  I have to say however that it really helped me locate resources internationally.  It's hosted by Karlsruher Institut für Technologie and is a "meta search interface" that includes union catalogues from all over the world.  It behaves in a similar way to Search25 in that it searches other catalogues simultaneously but instead of searching through higher education libraries within Greater London (or thereabouts) it searches through a range of union catalogues worldwide (as well as some book vendors and repositories).

It's very helpful when you've gone through all the typical avenues you might use.  For example I would typically search through Copac, Search25, Suncat, Pubmed, Worldcat and so forth.  But the KVK is a portal with a much broader range of locations.  And wielding IFLA vouchers I would tactfully approach (often with the aid of Google Translate) a prospective library.  When such an exchange was successful and I was able to get a library user the resource they wanted it was a good feeling.  

In fact it was one of the great aspects of being involved in this sort of work.  What people sometimes forget is that libraries are generally not obligated to share their resources with other libraries.  There is a sense to me that librarians share their resources because in some way it contributes positively to research and learning. It will in the very least help the library user achieve their current goal - whatever that is. Most really appreciated what we do.  OK, it's also true that Interlending staff have to justify their roles by generating revenue. Sharing resources is just what you do when you do this type of job. But you could, if you wanted to, avoid doing something you felt involved too much time/effort. Not everyone responds cordially to a request for something where they feel it's not convenient to fulfil.  But in my opinion most do.  Having the opportunity to collaborate with people the world over actively involved in resource sharing was genuinely rewarding.  

Attending the last IFLA ILDS Conference made me realise how people share resources worldwide and that there's so much more we can learn from each other in terms of good practice and service development.  Libraries in the UK all do things differently also.  But there's a real sense of good will among Interlending practitioners here and a desire to get the job of resource sharing done together.  Where there are different approaches encountered there are potential innovations to be considered and perhaps implemented.  Attending FIL Conferences was always such a great way to assess how you could improve your service.
 

I hope those that attend this year's conference all come away with ideas to further push their service forward.  It's a great job to be doing.

Mark Kluzek

Leaving FIL

Sadly, it's time for me to say goodbye to FIL and my fellow committee members... 

[CC Image: Flickr/woodleywonderworks]

I have had a brilliant time being a committee member for FIL, and have learned so much more about interlending - the benefits to my professional life have been so valuable. I've also had the opportunity to see what goes on behind the scenes when organising our annual conference, Interlend (it takes all year, from the moment the last one ends!).

Since accepting a new job that doesn't involve any interlending, I can no longer be a committee member, but would definitely recommend it to ILL staff of all levels. I was just a lowly library assistant when I joined the committee last year, but was warmly welcomed by a friendly and passionate bunch!!

Of course I still have a keen interest in interlending and especially developments in copyright, so I'll continue to follow @FIL_ILL for the latest news :)

Goodbye FIL and thanks for having me!

-Lucy Lambe

Bye bye FIL ...

This week I have been getting ready for a FIL meeting. Each year, we have 4 face to face meetings and tel-con meetings in-between. This is a tel-con and we will be discussing the last minute things the Committee needs to do to make Interlend 2014 a success.

One of the tasks I need to complete is the delegates list (so you can have a sneaky peek at who else is at Interlend) and also send some goodies for the delegate packs up to the Carlton Hotel in Edinburgh...

This is my last FIL meeting as my time on the Committee is now ending :( 

It will be sad to say goodbye to everyone, but my time with the group has been really valuable, both personally and professionally> I think learning what goes on in the different sectors has been especially interesting. The one thing that always surprises me is that essentially all inter lenders are doing the same task - receiving a request, finding the item and then supplying it - but we all do it in so many different ways ... Perhaps that's an ice breaker topic when you get to Interlend ..? I will leave you to ponder that ...

Bye bye FIL ... Hope to catch up soon 

Jennie

Marketing Officer