New developments in interlending in the Austrian National Library

Citation

Rachinger, J. (2003), "New developments in interlending in the Austrian National Library", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 31 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2003.12231bab.002

New developments in interlending in the Austrian National Library

New developments in interlending in the Austrian National Library

Passive and active interlending are traditionally important elements of the main services to users offered by the Austrian National Library (ANL). "Passive interlending" is used to mean providing users with publications that are not available in the ANL or in another library in Vienna, by ordering them from other Austrian or foreign libraries. "Active interlending" means providing other libraries with publications from our own stock according to their interlending requests.

Some statistical data concerning interlending in the ANL (2001):

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  Active interlending. Requests received from other libraries 7,402 – supplied by ANL 5,554.

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  Passive interlending. Requests sent to other libraries 1,890 – supplied by other libraries 1,325.

It is clear from the figures above that "active interlending" predominates in the ANL. About 60 per cent of interlending requests come from Austrian libraries, about 40 per cent from foreign libraries.

The traditional techniques of interlending (sending books, sending copies by mail) have grown significantly in recent years. With regard to "passive interlending" it has always been the primary aim of the ANL to supply readers who are not able to come to the ANL and who have to use interlending services. An important factor has been the retrospective conversion of all catalogues covering the ANL's collections of printed materials, the first phase of which was finished in 1997. In addition, the ANL is preparing to transfer its catalogue images (system KatZoom) into bibliographic databases. This has already been done for material between 1501-1929 and later than 1992. Only the period 1930-1991 (year of edition) still remains to be completed, but this should be finished in 2003.

If, after searching the ANL's OPACs, a title cannot be traced, the user can fill out a special online order form on the ANLK's Home Page (www.ONB.AC.AT) with separate sections for ordering books or articles. This enables a direct e-mail order for all registered users of the ANL to be created, not only for all books within the ANL but also for interlending purposes.

The ANL accepts requests from Austria or from other countries in a range of formats: mail; fax; e-mail; international interlending request form. Delivery of digitised materials by e-mail is not a common feature at the moment, since there are still copyright problems involved, which might be solved with the national implementation of the EU Copyright Directive within the next year. Electronic copies of copyright-free materials are, however, occasionally sent, mainly copies from microfilmed old newspapers.

The ANL is planning to enhance its electronic interlending services within the next few years. In this context it is worth mentioning the EU-project BOOKS2YOU! (http://books2u.uibk.ac.at/) as part of the initiative, Austrian Literature Online (ALO) (www.literature.at/webinterface/library). The idea of this project is to replace interlending of copyright-free books from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with digitisation on demand. Instead of a book or a microfilm being sent by mail, the item is digitised on receipt of the interlending request and integrated into the ALO virtual library. The requester is given access to the server, where the electronic item is available.

The implementation of digital services in the Department of Portraits and Pictures Library started in 2001. The picture catalogue of the whole collection is available at (www.bildarchiv.at/). It is possible to order all pictures from this collection and to have them delivered within three days – in digital or analog form according to the user's choice. The concept of digitising on demand has been underway since the beginning of this year, with more and more analogue services being replaced by digital services. Within the first year of operation, more than 3,000 high resolution scans have been made on demand.

Johanna Rachinger