Joys of ILL, Part 1: Explaining Why We Can't Get A Book

My Interlibrary Loan Borrowing staff (and I- since I help out with that) have a high success rate in getting books customers want that are eligible for ILL. A small percentage a Because there are so many ILL Management Systems (like ILLiad) out there, there are a handful of one-to two word reasons that come through for NOT filling an ILL request. Some are direct and to the point: NON-CIRCULATING. Some are a bit more elusive: BRANCH POLICY. Some are downright evasive: OTHER. There used to be one called UNSPECIFIED but OCLC killed UNSPECIFIED off earlier this year- but ILLiad users won't see OTHER and UNSPECIFIED gone until the next upgrade. So- for the time being-in ILLiad-land, the UNSPECIFIED reason gets transmorgified into OTHER.

I'm glad it's soon to gone. Glad, I tell you, glad, glad, glad! BWAHAHAHA! Its use gave rise to many an unproductive conversation with customers:
ILL: "They wouldn't lend the book to us."
Customer: "Why?"
ILL: "They wouldn't say."
Customer: "They wouldn't say? What does that mean?"
ILL: "The reason they gave was 'Unspecified'."
Customer: " 'Unspecified'? What is that supposed to mean?"
ILL: "They wouldn't say."

I think that 'Unspecified' was -at times- a way for the lender to say:"We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you." But I may be wrong. After all- they really wouldn't tell us why. "They wouldn't say."