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University of Minnesota enters 139 millionth request into OCLC ILL service

Created on September 30, the request was for a thesis, “The history and development of wax-printed textiles intended for West Africa and Zaire,” and was filled October 1 by Indiana University. The request was created via the FirstSearch/ILL Direct Request link, most likely by a library user rather than by a library staff member.

As the OCLC cooperative celebrates 25 years of resource sharing in 2004, OCLC is planning changes to interlibrary loan that will help libraries improve efficiency and workflow. “New directions in sharing” provides a source for the latest news as OCLC ILL functionality migrates to WorldCat Resource Sharing.

University of Minnesota Libraries
Indiana University Libraries

ARL study confirms the effectiveness of user-initiated interlibrary loan, document delivery services

User-initiated interlibrary loan (ILL) and document delivery (DD) operations provide better service than mediated ILL/DD services. In most cases, user-initiated services have lower unit costs, higher fill rates and faster turnaround times than mediated services. These are some of the major findings of a two-year study of ILL/DD services in 72 North American research, college and governmental libraries conducted by Mary E. Jackson of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The findings are reported in Assessing ILL/DD Services: New Cost-Effective Alternatives, forthcoming from ARL publications.

View a summary of the report

OCLC researcher publishes book with Wayne State University professor

Basic Research Methods for Librarians, by Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Consulting Research Scientist, OCLC Office of Research, and Ronald R. Powell, Professor, Library and Information Science Program, Wayne State University, covers the basic research methodologies likely to be used by librarians with an orientation to library issues. It also includes basic instructions on writing the research proposal and the research report.

OCLC welcomes the following new member libraries

Our Lady of the Lake University School of Education
Location: San Antonio, Texas, USA
OCLC Symbol: OLLSE
OCLC Network: Amigos Library Services, Inc.

Elk Grove High School
Location: Elk Grove, Illinois, USA
OCLC Symbol: EGHIL
OCLC Network: ILLINET

Membership guidelines and protocols

WorldCat update

Every 12 seconds an OCLC member library adds a new record to WorldCat, which contained more than 56 million records representing 939,647,705 holding locations as of October 9, 2004. Every 4 seconds an OCLC member library fills an interlibrary loan request using WorldCat, which has supported 139,300,816 interlibrary loan requests as of October 9, 2004. A library user searches WorldCat using the OCLC FirstSearch service every second.

See the latest WorldCat record

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OCLC Abstracts uses the Internet to deliver timely information about OCLC services, programs, news and events directly to subscribers’ desktops. This e-journal augments and complements OCLC’s Web site and print communications.