2010 ILLiad International Conference

ILL for Archives and Special Collections: Enhancing Access to Unique and Rare Materials

Your Presenters

Christian Dupont• Aeon Program Director for Atlas Systems• Former special collections director at UVa and Syracuse• Former ACRL/RBMS chair, currently on RBMS task force to

revise guidelines for interlibrary loan of special collectionsKristine Shrauger• Head of Interlibrary Loan / Document Delivery Services at

University of Central Florida• Previous positions at University of Arkansas and North Dakota

State Library• Presenter at previous ILLiad and Florida Resource Sharing

conferences

Today’s Menu

Prejudices, presumptions and premises

Evolution of practices and guidelines

Recent and current projects

Your experiences and ideas

Librarians as Enemies of Books

Randolph G. Adams, “Librarians as Enemies of Books” Library Quarterly 7 (1937): 317-331.

“If one will examine the deeds of gift, contracts, and other legal instruments whereby great collections are placed in institutions, one will be interested to observe that the collector does, all too often, regard the librarian as an enemy of books, from whom the treasures must be guarded. One would not impose the condition that ‘the books shall not be permitted to leave the building’ were it not for the fact that in the offing is the public-service expert and his unholy passion for ‘interlibrary loans’ of any kind of material.”

Is There a Future for Special Collections?

Daniel Traister, “Is There a Future for Special Collections? And Should There Be? – A Polemical Essay” RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage 1 (2000): 54-76.

“I have used (as a reader) and worked (as an employee) in libraries here and abroad. I have read a bit in library history. And I have come increasingly to feel that American special collections are not only a troublesome concept in theory but also, generally speaking, worse in practice. Our theory too easily justifies a broad range of practices that, however well-intentioned they may be, prove in execution – even when they are not simply idiotic, as, too frequently, they are – to be mean-spirited, judgmental, exclusionary, hierarchical, and otiose.”

Preservation, Access and Resource Sharing

• Preservation v. Access• Preservation and Access• “Resource Sharing” strategies for special

collections:– Traditional ILL (lending returnables)– Document Delivery (supplying non-returnables)– Digitize-on-Demand (creating permanent online

access)

• Need to change our cultures, work together

An ILL Timeline – Part 1

1917 ALA Committee on Coordination of College Libraries establishes an interlibrary lending code; U.S. Interlibrary Loan Code (first published)

1919 U.S. Interlibrary Loan Code (adopted by ALA)1940 U.S. Interlibrary Loan Code (first revision)1952 U.S. Interlibrary Loan Code (second revision)1954 IFLA International Lending and Document Delivery:

Principles and Guidelines for Procedure (original)1961 Wisconsin network begins intercampus lending of

archival materials

An ILL Timeline – Part 2

1967 OCLC founded1974 RLG founded1976 U.S. Copyright Act; Section 1081978 IFLA International Lending and Document Delivery:

Principles and Guidelines for Procedure (first revision)Missouri network begins intercampus lending of

archival materials1979 ALA-SAA Joint Statement on Access to Original

Research Materials (original)1983 IFLA Model National Interlibrary Loan Code (original)1984 Boucher, Interlibrary Loan Practices Handbook (first

edition)

An ILL Timeline – Part 3

1985 NLM launches DOCLINE1987 IFLA International Lending and Document Delivery:

Principles and Guidelines for Procedure (modifications to first major revision)

RLG Additional Guidelines for Access to Archives, Manuscripts, and Special Collections; promotes SHARES

1988 Rare Books & Manuscripts Librarianship issue on ILL and special collections

1991 RLG introduces Ariel1994 RUSA Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States

(original)

An ILL Timeline – Part 4

1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Copyright Term Extension Act

Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties introduces and distributes ILLiad

2000 RLG introduces ILL ManagerOCLC distributes ILLiad

2001IFLA International Lending and Document Delivery: Principles and Guidelines for Procedure (second major revision)

RUSA Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States (first revision)

An ILL Timeline – Part 5

2002 RLG Members Forum: “Sharing the Wealth”2004

ACRL/RBMS Guidelines for the Loan of Rare and Unique Materials (first revision)

2004 Google “Print” launched (becomes Google “Books” following year)

2005ACRL/RBMS Guidelines for Borrowing and Lending Special Collections Materials for Exhibition (original)

2008 RUSA STARS ILL Code for the United States (second revision) and Supplement (original)

An ILL Timeline – Part 6

2009 OCLC Research/RLG Programs forms “Sharing Special Collections” steering committee

ALA-SAA Joint Statement on Access to Original Research Materials (second revision)

ACRL/RBMS forms task force to revise Guidelines for the Loan of Rare and Unique Materials (will be second revision) and combine them with Guidelines for Borrowing and Lending Special Collections Materials for Exhibition (will be first revision)

Interlibrary Loan of Rare and Unique Materials

(RBMS Task Force charge from 2004 revision): “The committee’s objectives in preparing these guidelines are:

1.to encourage and facilitate inter-institutional loan from special collections for research use;

2.to affirm curatorial responsibility in decisions regarding the loan of special collections;

3.to specify the responsibilities of lending and borrowing institutions; and

4.to ensure the safety and security of items loaned.”

RLG: Sharing the Wealth

2002 RLG Members Forum “Sharing the Wealth” (Washington, DC)

Speaker: Tom Hickerson, Cornell UniversityInterlibrary Loan of Rare Books, 1993-2001

• Average of seventy books loaned per year• Presently, we receive 700+ loan requests per year for rare books.

Approximately 15% are filled.• Presently, we receive 600+ requests for photocopies from rare books.

Approximately 80% are filled.• Approximately 35% of loans are to RLG member institutions

Interlibrary Loan of Archives and Manuscripts (examples)• Loan of scrapbooks containing architectural drawings for use at the

University of California, Santa Barbara.• Loan of 20 cu ft of the William Miller Papers for use at the Jones Memorial

Library, a public library in Lynchburg, Virginia.• Loan of 151 cu. ft of Associated Gas and Electric Corp. Records for use at

Princeton University.• Loan of an album from an ornithological expedition for use at the University

of Southern Maine.

RLG: Sharing the Wealth

2002 RLG Members Forum “Sharing the Wealth” (Washington, DC)

Speaker: Susan Snyder, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

• From June 2001 through June 2002, The Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley participated in a pilot project to test the feasibility of interlibrary loan of special collections material among the nine UC campuses.

• Of the 469 patron-initiated requests for Bancroft Library loans processed during the pilot, 330 were denied, 21 were filled as microfilm loans, 98 were filled as photocopies, and 20 items were sent to the borrowing institution.

• Of the 20, one was damaged in transit. Most denials fell into two groups—too dear to lend or too common to lend. In the end, it was felt that the program as it had been developed was not able to "guarantee the security and safe handling of Special Collection material during loans.”

RLG: Sharing the Wealth

Forum outcome:Spawned a working group that surveyed research libraries on current attitudes and practices, gathered superior examples of procedures and forms used in the lending of special collections, and developed a model policy for lending the rare and unique. In the end, the working group concluded that opinions about lending special collections was divided into two camps:

1. those who already loaned such materials successfully2. those who were unwilling to even discuss the possibility of

lending their rare and unique items.

OCLC: Sharing Special Collections

• In 2009, RLG Programs formed a steering committee on the delivery of special collections with SHARES manager Dennis Massie, OCLC, serving as chair

• Steering group revisited the idea of physically lending rare and unique materials and initially concluded that the topic was still too controversial for reasoned discussion.

• However, group members reconsidered and decided that, given the many changes in the economic, technical and cultural environments since 2002, it was worth having such discussions again.

OCLC: Sharing Special Collections

• Two main tasks have been identified during preliminary discussions:– streamlining work flows when handling ILL requests for rare and

unique materials, and– exploring how best to go about building trust between two

institutions sufficient to allow the physical lending of special collections materials.

• A subset of the interlibrary loan practitioners will draft recommended work flows for handling external requests for special collections items

• Another subset will explore the idea of creating a checklist for facility, staffing, policy and procedural standards that must be met to ensure “trustworthy” handling of another library's special materials on loan.

• This work will be done in consultation with the ACRL/RBMS Guidelines for Borrowing and Lending Special Collections Materials Task Force.

OCLC: Sharing Special Collections

• Web seminar, “Treasures on Trucks and Others Taboos,” on 28 May, 2009. The seminar featured a panel discussion with two pairs of SHARES experts and heads of special collection, one pair speaking from experience and the other just starting to consider the possibility of more widely sharing the physical items.

• Recording available from: http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/sharing/

Trying a New Recipe?

University of Central FloridaLends and Digitizes

Special Collections Materials

The Ingredients…

Read the ACRL/RBMS Guidelines for the Interlibrary Loan of Rare and Unique Materials, and wondered….

Discussed with ILL staff how to handle Special Collection materials how to create the workflow within ILLiad… could the ILL/DDS

department work with the guidelines?

Special Collections Criteria

• Only certain collections were available for ILL.• Special Collections would review every request as to whether or not to lend item.• If the requesting library did not have a controlled reading room, it was not available for loan. • Items must be lent/returned using UPS / FedEx.• If within a 50 mile radius, customers must come to the library themselves. • No removable book label on materials.• Bookband must have instructions on how to handle materials, i.e. no photocopying, wear with gloves, etc.

ILL Decision Tree

Culinary Outcome

Special Collections / ILL requests - fill rateRequest Type Items Requested Filled Unfilled Total

Articles 49 16% 33 67% 16 33% 100%Loans 254 84% 71 28% 183 72% 100%Total 303 100% 104 34% 199 66% 100%

Holdings via OCLC Less than 25 holdings 139Between 26 - 50 holdings 65Between 51 - 100 holdings 38Between 101 - 125 holdings 12Over 126 holdings 49

FILLED Unfilled Total 1935-present before 1935

Academic 83 113 196 149 47

Government 1 3 4 3 1

Public 12 77 89 63 26

Special 8 6 14 13 1

104 199 303 228 75

Culinary Outcome

Cancellations Items PercentageAvailable as full-text on website 3 1%Book Art - does not circulate 19 6%Borrowing institution within UCF Library Service 25 8%Checked Out 4 1%Closed for renovations 17 6%Copyright violation 1 0%

Does not want special collections/archives 4 1%

Duplicate request 1 0%Exceeds max cost 1 0%Horror Fantasy materials does not circulate 3 1%Lack volume/issue 5 2%Libraries with copies in general collection 1 0%Material shows signs of possible mold contamination 1 0%Material too fragile to lend 32 11%Missing 2 1%Moved from special collections to general collection 1 0%No longer in OCLC 3 1%No Reading Room 57 19%No response from special collections/archives 3 1%Non-circulating - Special Collections 10 3%Staff error 21 7%Thesis 5 2%Too rare to lend, item could not be replaced if lost 1 0%Total Cancellations 220 72%Filled 83 27%Total Requests 303 100%

Copyright Considerations

Publication Dates of Requested Items

ILL Concerns

• Academics were heavily favored over all others. • Students and Faculty on our remote campuses were told to come to the main campus.• Some libraries failed to return items via UPS or FedEx.• Some items had the appearance of non-returnables. • Handling items that were in the public domain … could we just scan the entire item and treat it like a non-returnable?

Collaborative Digitization Project

Our next steps were...

Working with Special Collections and Digital Services to set up a system that could take requests in the public domain and have them digitized and it would serve 2 purposes: fill an ILL request and build up the digital collection for Special Collections.

There were a few hiccups with turnaround time to get started and who

is supposed to pick-up and deliver the materials.

Special Collections still had the availability to say no to digitizing the item.

Reviewed lending requests 5 years later and discovered a requested collection that showed a promise of what customers were

looking for… digitize as much of the collection as possible.

Dessert!

Your experiences

Your ideas

Conclusions?

Some ingredients for success:• Community-endorsed guidelines• Examples of local policies and practices• Workflow management tools• More conversation, exploration and

cooperation!

Thank You

Resources• ACRL/RBMS

http://rbms.info• RUSA/STARS

http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/index.cfm• OCLC/RLG Programs “Sharing Special Collections”

http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/sharing/default.htm• UCF “PRISM” Project

http://palmm.fcla.edu/prism/

• Christian Dupont cdupont@atlas-sys.com• Kristine Shrauger kshrauge@mail.ucf.edu

Photo on title slide courtesy of Karal Gregory Photography