About ILL Gateway
ILL Gateway began as a Directed Project to complete required hours for the Masters of Library and Information Studies through the University of Oklahoma. Additionally, the impetus for the project came from Sarah Simpson's own experience as the interlibrary loan supervisor of the Tulsa City-County Library. There is a lot of interlibrary loan information available on the World Wide Web, but much of it focuses on the particular needs of academic and special libraries. While public libraries share many of the same issues, other topics that are of great interest to academic libraries, such as electronic reserve and distance education, aren't issues that are of primary concern to public libraries. ILL Gateway was envisioned as a web presence that would allow public librarians to connect to sites and information that are of importance to us, without wading through a lot of information that isn't pertinent to our needs.
In creating the ILL Gateway, I attempted to identify sites that public library interlibrary loan staff might need to refer to either in the regular course of ILL activity or as they attempt to make decisions about which products to use or purchase or how to improve their service or efficiency. In addition, I created additional textual content that suggests how the information can be used and what questions may be asked by interlibrary loan staff about certain products or issues.
Obviously, this web site will remain a work in progress. Interlibrary loan gets more complex and fascinating all the time as technology changes the way we work and the service we are able to provide. Please contact me at illgateway@yahoo.com with your ideas about what links or information would be helpful to you and your interlibrary loan staff.
Site Maintenance - Links will be checked on a biweekly basis. New content will be added as time allows and suggestions are received. The site is currently hosted on the University of Oklahoma's student server. Currently, attempts are underway to locate a more permanent home for the site which will no longer be supported after May 2003.