At the University of Brighton Falmer site, we do not require a tutor's
signature, but no ILL request is processed without the approval of the
relevant subject librarian. All ILL expenditure is 'controlled' at subject
librarian level. As well as sorting out the occasional inessential request,
this also helps in that it can give the subject librarians an idea of
possible shortfalls in library stock.
No yearly quota is imposed, but library users, particularly undergraduates,
are usually restricted to having a certain number of requests in the system
at any one time: 6 for undergraduates and 10 for postgraduates. Again, this
is at the discretion of the librarians, so leeway is possible if there is a
genuine need for extra requests to be made.
Surely one problem with a yearly quota is that students, unless in the
possession of a crystal ball, cannot know precisely what use they may need
to make of an ILL service in the future, or of the exact value of a
particular item until it has been used. This must lead to students
unwittingly using up their quota on items which turn out to be less than
useful, while being unable to request genuinely-needed items as time wears
on because their allocation has been exhausted.
Louise Allum
Inter-library loans
Falmer Library
University of Brighton
-----Original Message-----
From: Annette Moore [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 15 May 2001 12:09
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Undergraduate use of Interlibrary Loans services
Here at the University of Sussex library, we are reviewing our current
policy of asking undergraduates to have their requests countersigned by
their tutor. I would be interested in hearing from other libraries
regarding use of the Interlibrary Loan services by Undergraduates in
terms of tutor signatures or restrictions on the number of items
requested.
Annette Moore
Annette Moore
Interlibrary Requests
University of Sussex Library
University of Sussex
Brighton, BN1 9QL
Email: [log in to unmask]
Telephone: 01273 678162
Fax: 01273 678441
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