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."

Encouraging the Heart:In praise of stickers

I've been having some problems with the computers I work with (my laptop is still spending quality time in IT), so I've been camping out in the workroom so I get some computer time. It's given me an opportunity to observe what's going on. Staffers troop in with ILL Lending fills and -if they found everything we asked them for- I often heard the phrase: "Don't I get a gold star?" Well, I thought, why not? But gold stars are just so early 20th Century, y'know? So, I got a bright idea. I'd been putting smiley faces on the stats spreadsheet every time everything was found. Why not smiley face stickers to celebrate staff finding everything we asked for? I thought that they would be easy to find considering the rampant 70's nostalgia out there. It wasn't as easy to find them as I thought it would be. Starting in September, I began handling them out.

It's been interesting seeing the reactions of staff. Some staff seek me out to get a sticker. In one department, it's an excuse to brag (and -according to one staffer- rub it in to other staff that had bad luck finding fills) . One staff member displays the stickers on her book truck like WWII fighter pilots displayed "downed enemy plane" counts. A tiny minority of staff aren't enthused.

It's been an interesting exercise. I wonder how they'll react to the smiley stars I'll be handing out in December.