ILL 101
Online Course Proposal
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Project Description:
In recent decades, interlibrary loan (ILL) services have grown exponentially in
both academic and public libraries, and ILL has evolved from a boutique service
designed to serve the needs of a few scholars into a key component of every
library’s public service offerings. Significant developments in ILL automation have
vastly streamlined the tasks of locating desired materials, initiating and updating
requests, and maintaining statistical reports; however, a rapidly changing
technological landscape, more restrictive copyright laws, and the advent of
licensing agreements for e-resources have all combined to make the
management of daily ILL operations infinitely more complex.
Despite the growth in both volume and complexity of daily operations, many ILL
departments are managed by librarians who learned nothing about ILL issues in
library school because the curriculum did not address it, or by non-MLS staff who
never attended library school in the first place. Most ILL practitioners are illprepared for their positions and forced to rely exclusively on on-the-job training
for their professional education. This lack of preparation is compounded by the
fact that most ILL practitioners receive little or no travel funding and must rely
instead on web-based workshops and listservs for continuing education.
This workshop is designed to provide ILL managers with a firm foundation in
interlibrary borrowing and lending protocols, best practices, copyright and
licensing issues, ILL systems, and authoritative resources for continuing
professional education beyond the workshop.
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Intended Market:
ILL managers in all types of libraries, although primarily academic and public
libraries, who are new to the field of interlibrary loan. This could include
managers with many years of experience in other areas of librarianship, but who
recently assumed ILL duties and need an introduction to the field. Several ILL
workshops have been presented at ALA Midwinter conferences, and have
typically attracted about 50 to 80 attendees each.
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Authorship:
o Megan Gaffney – Coordinator of Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery
at the University of Delaware.
o Tina Baich – Interlirbary Loan Librarian at IUPUI University Library.
o Cindy Kristof – Head of Access Services and Associate Professor at Kent
State University.
o Collette Mak – Head of Resource Access and Delivery at the University of
Notre Dame, and formerly Resource Sharing Product Manager at OCLC.
These authors will share responsibility for content development and presentation.
All four of them have taught ILL workshops, have many years of experience in
ILL operations in academic libraries, and are very respected speakers/presenters
at regional and national ILL meetings. Copies of their CVs can be provided upon
request.
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Competition:
No other comparable course exists now or has been offered in recent memory,
and most ILL training workshops focus exclusively on system-specific procedures
and protocols. As mentioned above, STARS has offered several face-to-face
workshops covering this same content, but those workshops require travel to the
Midwinter conference. Our hope is that by offering the content online, we will
attract a much larger audience and fill a very large gap in ILL education.
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Main Topic Outline:
1. Interlibrary borrowing practices and protocols – 2 sessions, 60 minutes each
2. Interlibrary lending practices and protocols – 2 sessions, 60 minutes each
3. Copyright and licensing issues – 2 sessions, 60 minutes each
4. ILL resources and systems – 2 sessions, 60 minutes each

Online course experience: Several of the authors have prior experience with
preparing and delivering web-based training, although not necessarily with
WebCT.

Length of Course: 8 sessions total, 60 minutes per session
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Schedule for Completion: In process.

Writing Sample: In process.
Contact:
Heather Weltin
Head of Access Services
University of Wisconsin Madison
hweltin@library.wisc.edu
608-262-8958
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