Racine PL head of adult services reports that the recent Wisconsin budget cut to close the ILL office for Milwaukee County should not have too bad an effect on the Racine patrons.
“Interlibrary loans can be expensive, costing an average of more than $30 when all of the searching and processing time and shipment costs are factored in, she said. Often, libraries will purchase a requested material since the cost to borrow it from another library may total or exceed its actual cost.”
Racine PL head of adult services reports that the recent Wisconsin budget cut to close the ILL office for Milwaukee County should not have too bad an effect on the Racine patrons.
“Interlibrary loans can be expensive, costing an average of more than $30 when all of the searching and processing time and shipment costs are factored in, she said. Often, libraries will purchase a requested material since the cost to borrow it from another library may total or exceed its actual cost.”“A bigger impact may be the state cuts to the State Reference and Loan Library’s contract with Wisconsin Interloan Service, which help process requests for titles at University of Wisconsin and private college campuses.â€?
Wisconsin’s 2003 state budget , released last July, included a major cut to inter library lending to patrons outside of Milwaukee county. Look for “Impact of 2003-05 budget on statewide library contracts� to read about the budget cuts for Interlibrary Loan, Milwaukee Public Library decreased from $64,000 (2002-03 base) to $18,750 (2003-04) and Interlibrary Loan, Wisconsin Library Services – decreased from $155,800 (2002-03 base) to $46,295 (2003-04).
Uh-oh!
If I were a nutjob wanting to get books on my favorite extreme topics in the library, I’d read this article and rejoice…and then start piling on the ILL requests. I wonder if when it comes down to it, the library will buy and add books to their collection that aren’t desired or if they will bite the bullet and pay more for the ILLs as a matter of principle?
Terminally ILL
Inter-library loan is the BIG LIE,
the con game, the promise that’s never
fulfilled…
Libraries and funders of libraries cut services,
eliminate staff and trash collections all with
the rationale that something they don’t have
can be obtained from another library via interlibrary loan…
But since there is little communication between
libraries, the same stuff is dumped by everyone
so the little interlibrary loan request
(IF they agree to place one) goes from library to library to library never being filled…
Meanwhile the library beancounters are issuing
numerous reports (internally) stating that
interlibrary loan of anything their own
library system does not have, is just too expensive,
will NOT be approved and everybody
just better stop doing it, NOW.
And so they give the public just one more
reason to say “screw libraries, they NEVER
have what I need and they don’t get it for
me from another library when I ask.”
Re:Terminally ILL
Well, you get what you pay for. It’s up to the public to decide (through who they elect and what bonds and such they vote for) how much to fund the library. If the library mattered to the general public, it would be well-funded. However, I find it very hypocritical for people to whine on one hand about not wanting taxes to go up and then whine on the other that the library doesn’t have what they want. It’s a trade-off, and libraries’ collections won’t improve until the public stops expecting something in exchange for nothing.
Thank you
I was an ILL librarian, and we usually DID get what the patrons wanted.
But, as you state, you get what you pay for.
The public seems to feel that libraries and staff are free or should work for free.
Re:Thank you
Libraries have created the illusion that we work for free by offering free materials and services to everyone and not informing anyone of the costs.
Library administrators have always had a sense of entitlement, that funding will always be there and be increased.
They have had an extreme reluctance to mention the costs of running a library and the thought of fund raising or lobbying the public has the degrading reek of “trade” and “filthy lucre.”
The reason that the public votes NO to increase library funding and does nothing when officials cut funding is because they are not getting what they paid for.
Instead of being entrepreneurial and creating alternatives to systems that don’t work and cost too much, libraries throw up their hands and cut the service or deliberately understaff or underfund it, secretly hoping that if they cut something the public really wants, that the public will pony up with the money.
It doesn’t work. The public goes elsewhere.