Re: [Videolib] ILL question

James Scholtz (jimscholtz@sdln.net)
Fri, 30 Apr 2004 16:11:27 -0400

Hi all - I'm staying away from all the copyright questions but I'd like to
chime in on the ILL question. Now I'm from a public library but have been
a library director and AV librarian at a couple of college libraries as
well as being a library system consultant so I've heard all sides of the
ILL issue - professors, reserve librarians, students, patrons, net lender
vs. net borrower issues, etc. Does your library receive a portion of
funding from ILL requests (i.e. being a net lender vs a net
borrower?) Perhaps that is why your director wants you to make those items
available for ILL or perhaps there is some sort of inter-institutional
agreement for ILLs. It doesn't seem fair that students would not have a
right to check these items out but that another institution would - are the
ILLs from institutions the result of instructor or student requests (can
you tell?). If they are from students - then I'd say you definitely have a
dichotomy. Although I agree with all of the salient points Gary brings up
for not loaning on ILL, I do believe that loaning begats loaning - meaning
that if you loan your "stuff," perhaps it will loosen the requesting
institutions to loan their "stuff" as well and we'll all benefit. I know
that has happened in several of the libraries I've had the pleasure of
directing (boy do I live in an isolated world or what?). Your primary
objective is to buy materials that reflect and support the curriculum - and
to have those materials available when demand presents itself - not to make
those materials available to other institutions who don't want to buy
them. Perhaps you could charge a rental fee for ILLs and that would solve
the problem. Just my 2¢ worth... Jim S.

At 12:18 PM 4/30/2004 -0700, you wrote:
>Greetings,
>
>I'm new to this list, so if this has been brought up numerous times, I
>apologize.
>
>I am the selector of our video/dvd collection, which is heavily used by
>our faculty and students alike. Our students cannot check these items out
>of the library, they are for library use only. Faculty may check them out,
>generally for a 24 hour period, but we do make exceptions for them on a
>case by case basis. I only recently took over this collection, and I
>discovered that we have been ILL-ing some of our videos and dvds to one
>particular institution, and this distresses me greatly. I don't want to
>set a precedent, so other institutions start asking to borrow the
>collection as well. I have many objections, but I keep coming back to the
>fact that if we don't allow our students to take home these materials why
>would we allow people from other institutions to do that?
>
>Personally I would like to set a policy where we don't lend out our videos
>and dvds, due to their frequent use, among many other reasons, but my
>library director disagrees with that and thinks it is too strict of a
>policy. Anecdotally, I have heard that most institutions don't lend this
>kind of collection through ILL, but I was wondering if any of you on this
>list could give me some advice on the matter, ie how to change my
>director's mind, or if indeed most institutions don't lend their vids/dvds
>(or if I am completely wrong about that). Any advice on this matter would
>be greatly appreciated. If this has been discussed time and time again,
>please feel free to reply to me off-list.
>
>Thanks in advance!
>
>Susanna Eng.
>
>____________________________________________
>Susanna Eng
>Assistant Instructional Services Coordinator
>Information Services Division
>University of Southern California
>Tel: (213) 740-8349
>Email: susannae@usc.edu
>____________________________________________
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Videolib mailing list
>Videolib@library.berkeley.edu
>http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/videolib

James C. Scholtz, Director
Yankton Community Library
515 Walnut St.
Yankton, SD 57078
605-668-5276
jimscholtz@sdln.net

_______________________________________________
Videolib mailing list
Videolib@library.berkeley.edu
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/videolib