By Stephen D. Corrsin
Research and Access Services, Library

Librarians are constantly looking for new ways to gain access to information resources. As books, journals, etc., become more and more expensive, and many sorts of information appear only in electronic format rather than in print, we are developing new ways to bring these materials to readers. Indeed, the push in libraries is away from ownership, and toward temporary or one-time access to information sources.

A good example can be found in the departments that most libraries used to call "interlibrary loan." These words evoke the image of a person in one library requesting that a book be borrowed for her or him from another library. The request is mailed away and, eventually, the book is shipped from the second library to the first, where the fortunate reader (perhaps some four to six weeks later) actually receives it.

In fact, ""interlibrary loan" departments are increasingly performing other sorts of work. For one thing, almost all requests for loans now take place via online networks (rather than traveling through the U.S. mails). Telefacsimile and scanning technologies are used to speed the actual delivery of shorter documents, like journal articles, avoiding the postal service altogether.

Readers make growing numbers of requests for journal articles, and such requests are often sent to commercial document suppliers rather than to other libraries. These for-profit firms are sometimes criticized because they are "only in it for the money"--but, since they are in it for the money, they typically try harder and satisfy requests faster than many understaffed, overworked libraries can. Furthermore, it is not unusual for "interlibrary loan" staff to refer readers to other libraries' online catalogs, available via the Internet. The word "gopher" (which has become a perfectly acceptable verb, as in, "'Why don't we try gophering for this?") is heard more and more.

For the librarians and other staff members involved, as well as for most of our readers, these are exciting developments. The "interlibrary loan" departments of yore were typically sleepy little operations housed in dimly lit comers of the library building. But now these offices are finding themselves more and more in the center of debates over "library resource sharing" and "'access vs. ownership." One way this can be seen is in the names of these units; here at Brooklyn College, for example, the former "interlibrary loan unit" has become "Research Services."' With this name change has come new j directions, new clients, and a significantly greater volume of requests from our clientele, the College's faculty and graduate students.

If you need information that the Library doesn't own, whatever the format-book, journal article, cassette, or electronic information-Research Services will acquire it for you and absorb any associated costs. Come by our office, located on the Library's lower level, and talk over your needs. Or, give us a call at x4414. We would like to help you expand your research beyond the walls of the Brooklyn College Library, into the many other collections (both domestic and foreign) that are relevant to your scholarly activities.