Yes, Librarians are great, but Public Libraries everywhere are under severe budget constraints and they DO HAVE TO PAY for Interlibrary Loan, both in the staff time required to enter and track an ILL request and the charge per transaction of services like OCLC.. I personally have been told by (my then) local library that, while they will process my requests, they would prefer that I not submit them! They suggested that instead I see if I can get borrowing privileges from the local college library (impossible). And this in a state (Ohio) that has been a leader since the 70's in interlibrary cooperation!
The good news though - I have since moved, and an area public library from which I can obtain borrowing privileges has joined a statewide ILL consortium that includes college and university libraries and allows access to university holdings for the general public. BUT this is a library serving the upper class in a suburb of a large metropolitan area! So things are looking better! But God help the serious reader in the farm counties! (Seriously - they exist!)
- Bill
On 12/30/2011 6:45 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> To be sure. Librarians are the best. Probably why they're trying to get rid of
> them.
>
> Joanna
>
> ----- Original Message ----- that was my question, though. I'm not an academic,
> yet I can get pretty much any scholarly article or book I want, including copies
> of chapters from dissertations, simply by placing the order with interlibrary
> loan. Takes, tops, three days. I'm assuming SA's ILL system for public libraries
> just isn't as liberal as in the states? I've, astonishingly, never had to pay
> either - no matter which state I was in - not even backwater Florida. The
> librarians bent over backward to help find things. librarians rock. I agree with
> your colleauge from the spoons list, though, it should be easy to get your hands
> on scholarly materials. My experience in the states is that it is extremely easy
> - for social science and humanities stuff. And, even though they claim they
> charge, they never have, not in 20 years of using the system - even back in the
> day when they had to physically send copies of articles from journals.
>
> At any rate, if I can help, I will!
>
> At 01:44 PM 12/30/2011, Ismail Lagardien wrote:
>> There is an interlibrary loan system
>>
>> The problem I have faced is that being unemployed/out of the educational system
>> means virtually no access to scholarly material. I am battling to get
>> publications out to strengthen my job prospects... Alas. I shouldn't complain
>> too much, I am employed; just not doing what I want to do - teach.
>>
>>
>> Ismail Lagardien
>>
>> Nihil humani a me alienum puto
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________ From: shag carpet bomb<shag at cleandraws.com>
>> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Friday, 30 December 2011, 20:11 Subject: Re:
>> [lbo-talk] Serves me right to bitch and moan
>>
>> looks like. from what I can tell, the system is more stringent in SA, with ILL
>> access mentioned WRT university systems, and not public libraries such as I
>> have mostly dealt with.
>>
>> I imagine this is has roots in the same ideas that gave rise to the differences
>> in copyright/intellectual property laws in u.s. v europe?
>>
>> <> The Google tells me there is interlibrary loan in SA. Is it different <>
>> there? <>
>>
>>
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>