RE: Question: Local/National opportunities and issues

[Rebekah Tanner <foxgull@netscape.net>]

Craig --
Perhaps it is unfortunate that interlibrary loan takes some time, but its power is really quite remarkable in this age of electronic communication. And yes, it does require the user to gather some very specific information in order for it to work effectively. Nevertheless, interlibrary loan does have the potential to bring information to your locality from anywhere in the nation, if you are patient enough for your request to move through the various levels.

For example -- let's say you wanted something that is truly only available at the National Agriculure Library in Washington, D.C. -- and this may be slightly different in Vermont, but here in NY it would go like this:

You would place your request at your local public library. If they didn't have it and it was not available on point-to-point loan within the public library system (we, for example have 14 member libraries, one with 9 branches, so 23 locations in all)  -- then it would come to my office which is the system administrative center. We would do a search on OCLC or other automated public bibligraphic system via computer, find the most reasonable location & request it. If no one in NY state had the book, we would move beyond the state (having been sure to check the NY State Library itself) and only as a last resort would we go to the National Ag Library.

In fact, interlibrary loan requests to that library can ONLY be made by another library, not an individual patron, such as yourself.

For us in the Mohawk Valley Libarary Association where we are just completing a two-year project on sustainable agriculture which included the purchase of about $30,000.00 in materials, we hope to be cutting the wait-for-loan-time not only for our membership, but for other borrowing institutions in our state, and by implication, the northeast and the entire country -- with these materials now available through a public library system the entire interlibrary loan process should be swifter, cheaper and etc.

MVLA hopes to become a major loaning institution in this regard. One of our post-funding period goals is in fact the interlibrary loan implications.

Additionally, because most of this is very current, main-stream (even if from small presses) published (not grey-lit) materials -- books, videos, CD-ROM products, & etc. it is covered by copyright and is unlikely to be Internet available any time soon. 

This project (http://www.mvla.org/revsa/) was federally funded and I think is a prime example of the way the burden on Federal information / personnel resources can be "redistributed" to a more grass-roots  availability. In a sense, the public library system becomes a "middle-man" -- writing & administering the grant, then acting as central clearing house for out-of-system interlibrary loan requests.

Walk in Peace!
Rebekah Tanner