Interlend 2015: Programme published!

Well, Spring has sprung, and with it our plans for Interlend 2015!

I’m very pleased to be able to tell you all that the eagerly-awaited programme for Manchester has now been published!  Apologies for not getting it out sooner, but we had a few ‘late entries’ after the deadline for the call to speakers.  Usually, they wouldn’t be considered after the deadline, but Committee felt that they were interesting, and covered topics you’d want to hear about, so we made exceptions this time around.

We are especially delighted to have two very interesting and well known speakers as keynotes.    Ned Potter will address the conference on Day 1, talking about useful social media in libraries.  Then, on Day 2, Mike McGrath gives us the benefit of his considerable experience as he discusses just where interlending is at the moment. I won’t list all the other contributors – check out the website for details- but we are covering some very topical issues, including PDA, Open Access, copyright and we've also included a number of practitioner-based sessions. I hope you’ll agree that we have produced a packed programme covering a wide-range of topics.

There really should be ‘something for everyone’ in the interlending community, and the venue is  conveniently located for even day delegates from around the country.  So do take a look at the programme, and consider booking a place.  But don’t hesitate too long; bookings are being made fast!

Details of the programme can be found on the FIL website:

http://www.forumforinterlending.org.uk/

I look forward to seeing you all in Manchester!

ILL under Fire

Just a quick blog late on a Friday. Having worked in ILL for about fifteen years nows I thought I had seen everything when it came to working under unusual circumstance, but just before Easter I had another first. 

On the Wednesday before Easter there was an underground fire in Holborn Central London (Just google Holborn fire for some pretty dramatic pictures).  The library I work in was very close to the fire so it made for an interesting day.  The fire began at about 12.30 but there was not an evacuation of surrounding buildings until mid -afternoon.  Luckily nobody was hurt and damage to any buildings in the area was minimal.  As there were building works going on outside the office I had not noticed the smoke in the air.  Once the power was switched off for safety I had to stop working, but I hope you'll agree that it was quite impressive that all the ILLs waiting to be processed were done before the building was evacuated.   Luckily the post had been delivered quite early so I had time to get this done before a late lunch break.   As the library was due to close that evening anyway my Easter holiday started a bit early.  I had a very smoky journey once I got outside.  Thank goodness for the British Library as I popped in for a much needed cuppa on the way home.

So apologies to anyone who has received their loans back late and slightly smoky! 

Have a great weekend and here's hoping for a smoke free rest of the year.

Karen

 

Musings from Edinburgh University Library

Beautiful weather here this week – definitely not weather to be stuck inside.  What has been happening here?

Edinburgh will be going live with Alma on 29^th June, and I’m sure many of you will appreciate the major operations involved in configuring everything for migration from Voyager.  Similarly “Subject matter experts” or SMEs can routinely be seen sitting under headphones watching or listening to online training videos which are hopefully relevant to their own functional area.  Our email boxes are bombarded with Alma-related messages;  we’ve been to meetings, seminars, more meetings and “Learning to train” training courses, and each now have to give a short presentation on a functional area of Alma or Primo.

All this is highly organised and will put the library in good stead for the launch.  However, for ILL staff it’s rather a surreal experience, because in the short term at least, we won’t be directly using Alma for Interlibrary Loans; instead we plan to continue with ILLiad until we find a way of integrating the 2 systems.

I’m still doing all the training on general aspects of Alma, but I almost feel as if I’m looking at all the mad activity through a blurred lens, not quite sure where we fit in.

As far as ILL is concerned, it’s pretty well business as usual – a fairly humdrum existence at the moment, were it not for some crazy requests

Miracle workers?

Case 1

Day 1:  Student submits request for microfilms from an art library in the USA

Day 6:  (Note the day!)  Student phones up informing us that he had contacted said art library who had informed him that they normally process items in 7 days……

Question from student:  “Why have my microfilms not arrived yet?”       

 

Case 2

Day 1 - 11.15 am:  Request submitted by student for an article.

Day 1 – 11.18 am:  Student phones in, wondering why he hasn’t heard anything about his request……

We do like to think we’re quite efficient, but……….

 

Lost item returned to the nest

This week a book was returned to us by a US library.  It had been handed into them by some random person.  We checked our catalogue to discover that it had been recorded as missing in our catalogue in 2001, having been issued to one of our non-American students and apparently never returned.  If only books could talk – where has it journeyed meantime??

 

OK, I can’t put off that training video any longer….   Have a good weekend everyone when it comes.