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Discovery, Collections & Systems

Notes and procedures

Rationale

The rationale for ILL Purchase on Demand is that there is substantial evidence from other libraries and our own experience that items added to the collection because they were requested on ILL have higher subsequent circulation than items selected by other means. When we initiated the program in 2012, we hoped that research from other libraries would be borne out in our own experience, and in general it has been. The criteria for POD are:

  • The item is available via Amazon Prime and can be provided to the requestor as quickly as ILL borrowing.
  • Items eligible for ILL POD:
    • Cost $150 or less (the original price cap was $100 but we raised it to match the cap on ebook purchases)
    • English only (foreign films OK)
    • published in the last 5 years
    • all users that have ILL privileges are eligible
    • no subject/content restrictions
    • format is books, DVDs, CD or scores (we haven’t changed this since withdrawing the CD collection, so we may wish to eliminate CDs as an eligible format)

ILL Special is a fund that exists to support the purchase of items requested on ILL that cannot be obtained through normal ILL channels. In many cases these are items for which it is appropriate to give the item to the requestor rather than add it to the collection. The decision is made at the discretion of the ILL manager, in consultation with the appropriate liaison librarian as needed. This includes theses & dissertations. This fund can also be used for other ILL-related fees and fines, such as payments for lost books.

In WMS, there are dedicated funds for ILL POD and ILL Special. In the general ledger, both are charged to 93300 9078.

  • Most data related to ILL POD is on the shared drive, ILL