Glossary/Acronyms
ABINIA (Asociación de Estados Iberoamericanos para el Desarrollo de las Bibliotecas Nacionales de Iberoamerica)
ABINIA, created in 1989, is composed of Iberoamerican countries that share in common a cultural heritage as well as Spanish and Portuguese as national languages. ABINIA works to strength regional library integration through cooperative programs and interconnectivity with other information networks. Current members include Cuba, El Salvador, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Spain and Venezuela.
Access Services is an organizational unit in many libraries often comprised of interlibrary loan, document delivery, circulation, and stacks management functions.
Multipart paper forms that are used to request materials via interlibrary loan from libraries not participating in OCLC resource sharing or other online resource sharing programs. ALA forms can now be submitted via email in many instances.
American Library Association (ALA)
Founded in October 1876 and based in the United States the
American Library Association is a non-profit organization that promotes libraries and library education internationally. The ALA committee dedicated to interlibrary loan and resource sharing (STARS) falls under the purview of the ALA Reference and User Services Association (RUSA).
AMICUS is a national catalog which lists the holdings of the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and 1,300 Canadian libraries. It contains over 30 million records for books, magazines, newspapers, government documents, theses, sound recordings, maps, electronic texts as well as items in Braille and large print.
Infotrieve’s Ariel is a software program that allows ILL staff to send electronic images to other Ariel workstations using either FTP or email, and converts these images to PDF files for patron delivery.
ArticleReach Direct is a consortium of 11 academic libraries supported by Innovative Interfaces. Members have created a combined catalog of their journal collections allowing authorized users from each library to request articles from other member libraries in an unmediated manner.
An online translation tool from Yahoo (http://babelfish.yahoo.com/).
A ‘Big Deal’ is an online aggregation of journals that is offered as a package when a library or library consortium agrees to buy electronic access to all of a commercial publisher’s journals. The price based on current payments to that publisher. Big Deals usually allow a library to cancel paper subscriptions at some savings or purchase additional paper copies at discounted prices.
Refers to the procurement of loans and for copies from other libraries.
British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC)
The BLDSC is an international center for interlibrary loan and document supply. It supplies loans and photocopies of original documents.
Scanning software from Advanced Document Imaging Products. BSCAN software is often used with Bookeye planetary, or orbital, scanners.
Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI)
Under the auspices of the National Resource Council of Canada, CISTI serves as Canada’s national science library.
Refers to published materials related to Canada. It includes books about Canada, Canadian non-fiction works as well as books written by Canadians or former Canadians.
Action taken when a lending library cannot supply a requested loan or copy.
The standard U.S. interlibrary loan forms usually include a box for ILL staff to indicate whether the request for a photocopy of an article is CCL or CCG for copyright compliance. CCL refers to ‘compliance with copyright law’ and CCG refers to ‘compliance with copyright guidelines.’ CCG is used if the article is dated within the last five years, the requesting library does not own the journal title and this is less than the fifth request the library has made for this title within the current calendar year. CCL is used in all other instances of requesting photocopies if the article is older than five years, or the requesting library owns the journal title or if this is the sixth or greater request within the calendar year and if the borrowing library is paying royalties to the Copyright Clearance Center or document delivery vendor.
Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS)
CAS is a division of the American Chemical Society and a document provider of chemical and other scientific information.
China Academic Humanities and Social Sciences Library (CASHL)
CASHL, established is 2003, is a Chinese national academic library consortium whose purpose is to cooperatively acquire, preserve and share foreign and Chinese periodical resources in the humanities and social sciences among member libraries.
China Academic Library and Information System (CALIS)
CALIS, established in 1998, is a Chinese national academic library whose purpose is to promote and improve resource sharing among academic libraries including building an infrastructure for resource sharing and to serve multiple resource sharing functions among the participating libraries.
An interlibrary loan management software program.
A message sent from a lending library to a borrowing library requesting more information concerning a request or requesting agreement to conditions such as loan length, shipping method or lending restrictions such as in-library use only.
CONSER is the Cooperative Online Serials Program of the Library of Congress Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC). It is an authoritative source for bibliographic records, documentation, and training materials for serials cataloging. Records created and edited by CONSER member libraries are represented in the OCLC database.
A group of libraries joining together for cooperative services such as collection development, resource sharing and acquisitions.
CONTU, the Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works, was established in 1974 by the U.S. Congress to study issues associated with copyrighted works in computers and computer-related works.
COPAC gives access to the merged online catalogs of many major United Kingdom and Irish academic, special and national libraries.
Copyright Clearance Center (CCC)
Founded in 1978 as a not-for-profit organization, the CCC works to simplify licensing and support the intellectual property rights of content creators.
Custom Holdings Groups and Custom Holdings Paths In OCLC WorldCat Resource Sharing (WCRS) custom holding groups allow libraries to place potential lending libraries in categories based on their fee structures, their
proximity to the borrowing library or their lending policies. Custom holding paths specify the order in which these groups are chosen when submitting borrowing requests.
In OCLC WorldCat Resource Sharing (WCRS) a library can set a deflection based on certain criteria so that it does not receive requests for particular items. Common deflections are for audio-visual materials, electronic books or rare materials. Also, some deflections are based upon the type of borrowing library.
The gap between the technological ‘haves’ and ‘have nots.’ It refers to both the physical access to technology as well as the technological skills, or lack thereof, of a population.
Digital Rights Management (DRM)
DRM is access control technology that is used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to limit the use of digital content and devices.
Resource sharing software from Relais International. DOCDEL-L
DOCDEL-L is a discussion list for librarians, information professionals, and document suppliers. Topics covered in the list include document delivery, interlibrary loan and resource sharing in general to discuss the generic issues pertaining to delivering information to users via document delivery and interlibrary loan, as well as the broader issues involved in resource sharing.
DOCLINE is the National Library of Medicine’s automated interlibrary loan (ILL) request routing and referral system. The purpose of the system is to provide efficient document delivery service among North American libraries in the national network of libraries of medicine. Lonesome Doc allows users to order full-text copies of articles from medical libraries.
Document Delivery/Document Supply
Generally refers to providing articles to borrowing libraries or to internal patrons. Also known as ‘Electronic Document Delivery’ when the materials are provided electronically. Document delivery can be a service provided by an interlibrary loan unit or by a commercial vendor.
Egyptian Libraries Network (ELN)
Launched in 1998, the ELN links automated Egyptian libraries via the Internet.
Egyptian National Scientific and Technical Information Network (ENSTINET)
Created in 1986, ENSTINET is a nationwide system of information services whose activities include international and local database searching services, SDI (Selective Dissemination of Information Service) and document delivery services.
Ebooks are books that are available online. They can be books that have been scanned or books that have been ‘born digital.’
Electronic Document Delivery (EDD) see Document Delivery Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
EFT is the electronic exchange or transfer of money from one institution to another.
Electronic Journals (Ejournals)
Journals that are available online.
Electronic Resource Management (ERM)
Electronic resource management (ERM) systems allow a single access point to manage all areas of a library’s eresource collection including vendor information and rights statements needed for ILL, document delivery and ereserves.
Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS)
EThOS is a dissertation supply service from the British Library.
EUCAT is a pan-European Index of Union Catalogs which can be used as a discovery tool as well as for interlibrary loan and linking to full-text services.
Launched in 2008, Europeana is a multi-lingual online collection of millions of digitized items from European museums, libraries, archives and multi-media collections.
FTP is a standard network protocol used to copy a file from one host to another over the Internet.
Fill rates calculate how many borrowing, lending and document delivery requests an ILL department fills as a percentage of the number of requests received.
FreeForAll is an international collaboration of libraries whose mission is to provide underserved nations with health science journal articles for free and to foster lending between nations through the creation of a database of international libraries’ (non-North American) holdings.
Gallica, established in 1997, is a digital library from the Bibliothèque National de France (National Library of France). As of August 2009, Gallica made available on the web approximately 120,000 scanned volumes, 65,000 full-text volumes, 1,000 audio documents, and 110,000 images.
The OCLC symbol for Germany’s Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. With the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library) and the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (German National Library) in Frankfurt and Leipzig it forms Germany’s virtual national library. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek is also the central state library and repository library of the Free State of Bavaria.
Getting it System Toolkit (GIST)
GIST, from the IDS Project, uses free and open source tools and software, and customizable configurations, to integrate acquisitions and interlibrary loan with ILLiad and other products.
Global ILL Framework (GIF) Project
The GIF Project is a reciprocal agreement between North American and Japanese academic libraries and research institutes. It provides North American researchers with access to materials not available through normal ILL channels such as OCLC and it also provides Japanese researchers access to materials not held in Japan.
Google Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using and stored in its digital database.
Online translation tool from Google.
The HathiTrust, founded in October 2008, is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries. It includes content digitized via the Internet Archive and Google Books digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally by libraries. The partnership currently includes over 50 U.S. and European research libraries. As of December 2010, HathiTrust comprises over 7.5 million volumes, over 1.8 million of which are public domain.
The IDS Project is a resource sharing cooperative within New York State whose members include public and private academic libraries, the New York Public Library, and the New York State Library.
International Interlibrary Loan Services.
Interlibrary loan management software from Atlas Systems/OCLC. ILLiad Addons are links to online catalogs and other sources of information which can be directly accessed from within and ILLiad request record.
Interlibrary loan discussion forum.
Australian national Interlibrary Resource Sharing organization – ‘Inter-Library Request Service.’
Provides electronic document delivery in a variety of formats, including PDF delivery, of journal and magazine articles, conference papers, case studies, and book chapters through its product, Ariel.
III’s INN-Reach and ArticleReach resource sharing services connect multiple systems allowing patrons to make direct, online requests for materials.
Integrated Library System (ILS)
An ILS combines a library’s online catalog as well as functions such as acquisitions, cataloging, circulation and serials management.
Interlibrary Loan (ILL)/Interlending
Refers to borrowing and lending materials among libraries either with the intent to return (i.e. books, journal volumes, audio-visual materials) or to keep copies.
Interlibrary Loan Fee Management System (IFM) OCLC’s IFM allows libraries to debit and credit one another for ILL requests without exchanging money.
International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centers (IAMSLIC)
IAMSLIC is an international organization devoted to the recording, retrieval and dissemination of knowledge of all aspects of aquatic and marine sciences and their allied disciplines.
International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA)
IFLA is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) which supports and coordinates research and studies, and disseminates information about all aspects of library and information work worldwide. The IFLA Code is a model code for interlibrary loan and document supply, which was first established in 1983 by the IFLA Office for International Lending (OIL). It was fully updated and revised by OIL and the IFLA Section on Document Delivery and Interlending in 2000. The IFLA Voucher Scheme simplifies payment for international interlibrary loans. When a lender agrees to accept a voucher as payment, the library keeps the voucher to be reused at a later date when it is a borrower. Vouchers have unlimited validity and can be reused several times. The IFLA Loan/Photocopy Request Form is an internationally recognized form that can be used when the supplying library does not have forms of their own or does not participate in services such as OCLC.
International Organization of Standardization (ISO)
ISO is the world’s largest developer and publisher of international standards. It is a network for the national standards institutes of 160 countries.
ISO standard 10160 defines the terminology that is used for ILL transactions between various document exchange systems.
ISO standard 10161 defines the protocol for communication between various document exchange systems, allowing ILL systems at different libraries residing on different hardware platforms and using different software packages to communicate with each other to request and receive electronic documents.
Online source for music, movies, television shows, podcasts, audiobooks and applications for Apple Corporation products such as iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.
JPEG is a file format used for image compression.
From the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) this site provides access to national catalogs worldwide.
Provide returnable and non-returnable materials to another library, sometimes for a fee.
Libraries Australia Document Delivery (LADD)
LADD, an Australian interlibrary loan and document delivery service, provides access to over 700 Libraries Australia libraries, the New Zealand Te Puna interlibrary loan network and the international supplier Infotrieve.
LIBRIS, from the National Library of Sweden, administers the Swedish national union catalog as well as interlibrary loan service. LIBRIS offers free access to more than 5 million titles held at Swedish libraries.
Libraries very Interested in Sharing is OCLC’s first global, no-charge resource sharing group. LVIS, which was established in 1993, was created out of a shared goal by the Illinois State Library and the Missouri Library Network Corporation (MLNC) to encourage and provide greater opportunities for free resource sharing throughout the Midwest region. LVIS currently has nearly 3,000 members worldwide.
Interlibrary loan requests that are processed by ILL staff prior to being sent to lending libraries.
The National Library of Japan.
National Information Standards Organization Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP)
NCIP provides for the exchange of messages between and among computer-based applications enabling them to perform functions necessary to lend and borrow items, to provide controlled access to electronic resources, and to facilitate cooperative management of these functions.
A national library is specifically established by the government of a country to serve as the preeminent repository of information for that country.
National Library of China (NLC)
The repository for China’s publications including a comprehensive collection of all domestic formal publications and partial collection of foreign periodicals.
National Union List of Serials
A listing of the holdings of many U.S. research libraries including the Library of Congress.
Materials provided to borrowing libraries with the intention that the item will not be returned to the lending library. These items are primarily scanned or photocopied journal articles and book chapters, and may also include digitized theses and dissertations.
North American Coordinating Council (NCC) on Japanese Library Resources
The NCC, founded in 1991, serves the field of Japanese studies in North America by working closely with librarians, faculty, and students to strengthen Japanese language collections and to promote access to information in all forms and formats.
Originally founded as the Ohio College Library Center in 1967, OCLC is a non-profit computer library service and research organization. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain the OCLC online union catalog WorldCat, which is the largest online public access catalog (OPAC) in the world.
Odyssey is a document delivery service that allows library staff to send and receive documents from other OCLC ILLiad libraries and non-OCLC ILLiad sites. Odyssey can be used as a stand-alone client or as part of an ILLiad subscription.
Official Documents of the United Nations (ODS)
The ODS provides access to all types of official United Nations documentation, beginning in 1993.
Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC)
Open access journals are scholarly journals that are available online to the reader without financial, legal, or technical barriers.
Computer software for which the source code is freely available.
OpenURL is a standardized format of Uniform Resource Locator (URL) which enables Internet users to more easily access a copy of a resource. It enables linking from information resources such as abstracting and indexing databases (sources) to library services (targets), such as academic journals. The linking is mediated by ‘link resolvers,’ or ‘link-servers,’ which parse the elements of an OpenURL and provide links to appropriate targets available through a library by the use of an OpenURL knowledge base.
Patron Driven Acquisitions see Purchase on Demand
A type of network where computers communicate directly with each other, rather than through a central server. It may also describe applications by which users access the Internet to exchange files with each other directly or through a mediating server. Unmediated borrowing and lending can be based on a P2P network.
A business evaluation process used to determine the following external factors that influence the success of an organization: political, economic, social and technological. Legal and environmental factors may also be included (PESTLE) period.
A European-based library and information systems supplier acquired by OCLC in 2007.
The OCLC policies directory provides contact information, policies, schedules, catalog URLs and other pertinent information for libraries that are OCLC members.
Portable Document Format (PDF)
Developed by Adobe Systems, Portable Document Format (PDF) is used for capturing, reviewing and sharing computer files.
POD is the purchasing of books and other materials for users as they request them. Often these purchases originate as ILL requests.
RACER is a system used to search simultaneously catalogs in university libraries in Ontario, Canada and is used for processing interlibrary loan requests between these institutions.
RapidILL is a resource sharing system designed by the interlibrary loan staff at the Colorado State University Libraries to provide 24–48 hour article requesting and delivery.
In the OCLC WorldCat Resource Sharing system these are standardized reasons for canceling a lending request. Similar to IFLA response codes.
A formal agreement between libraries stating that they will lend materials to one another for free.
A Canadian interlibrary loan management software package.
Research Libraries Group (RLG)
The RLG consortium was founded by a group of major research libraries in 1974.
Resource sharing is an umbrella term which includes cooperative activities between libraries such as interlibrary loan, document delivery, and consortial borrowing.
Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative
The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative is an ad hoc group that advocates for changes in the way libraries conduct resource sharing. The group has written a Manifesto for Resource Sharing, which outlines a set of principles that support more open resource sharing.
Returnables are materials that are loaned from one library to another with the intent that the item will be returned to the lending library. These materials can include books, journal volumes, audio-visual materials, microforms and maps.
The American Library Association’s Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) Sharing and Transforming Access to Resources Section (STARS) is a group committed to sharing information and expertise in interlibrary loan and resource sharing.
The RSL, founded in 1862, comprises a unique collection of Russian and foreign documents in 247 languages. It is known for its specialized collections of maps, published and sheet music, audio records, dissertations and newspapers.
Swedish software which automates document delivery workflows for both loans and copies externally and internally. It integrates document requests from a diversity of ordering systems under a single interface.
Scanning is the process of translating documents into a digital form that can be recognized by a computer. Interlibrary loan staff scan articles and book chapters which they can then send in electronic format to other libraries.
ShareILL is an international gateway to electronic and print resources for interlibrary loan, document delivery, and resource sharing. (http://shareill.org)
SHARES began as a collaborative effort of the Research Libraries Group (RLG) enabling participating institutions to agree on prices, procedures and policies to support lending activities.
Singapore Integrated Library Automation Services (SILAS)
SILAS enables cooperative online shared cataloging services among its participants, maintains a national union catalog and facilitates cooperative acquisition and ILL among member libraries.
German, Austrian and Swiss research libraries’ document delivery service. SUBITO provides copies of articles from periodicals or books and also supports the lending of books.
Business evaluation tool for determining an organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)
A file format for storing images. TIFF files are often saved when scanning articles to be sent via interlibrary loan.
Telex is a network of teleprinters, similar to a telephone network, used for the purpose of sending text-based messages.
Trans-Tasman Interloan Gateway
Interlibrary loan program between New Zealand and Australia launched March 1, 2006, allowing patrons in both of those countries access to nearly 900 libraries.
The amount of time it takes to fill an interlibrary loan request. TAT can be calculated for borrowing, lending or document delivery requests and can be measured at various stages in a request’s process.
A combined library catalog representing the collections of a number of libraries.
The ability to send interlibrary loan borrowing requests to lending libraries without staff intervention.
Virtual Document eXchange (VDX)
VDX is an interlibrary loan and document request management software product. VDX was developed in the United Kingdom and in 2005 was acquired by OCLC.
An integrated library system used by libraries around the world including the Library of Congress.
World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO)
WANGO, initiated in 2000, is an international organization uniting non-government organizations (NGOs) to provide the mechanism and support needed for them to connect, partner, share, and multiply their contributions to solve humanity’s basic problems.
OCLC’s WorldCat is a global network of library content and services that uses the Internet to allow libraries access to tens of millions of bibliographic records that represent more than one billion items.
The OCLC-produced WorldCat Local software delivers single-search-box access to more than 700 million records from a library’s local catalog, its consortial catalogs, when applicable, as well as from OCLC WorldCat library catalogs worldwide.
WorldCat Resource Sharing (WCRS)
The WorldCat Resource Sharing network, supported by OCLC, comprises more than 9,000 libraries. WCRS is based on the WorldCat database which contains records representing physical and digital resources owned by libraries around the world.
A cataloging interface related to an OCLC/PICA product.
Z39.50 is an international standard defining a protocol for computer-to-computer information retrieval. Z39.50 makes it possible for a user in one system to search and retrieve information from other computer systems that have also implemented Z39.50.