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Home > Minerva > Policies > Intra-Minerva Request Policy

Intra-Minerva Request Policy

(Approved January, 2005)

Guide to procedures for requesting and lending Between Minerva sites

Full Participation:

Any item that normally circulates locally is requestable by any Minerva library, except as noted below.

  1. Items on course reserve may be exempted from request during the period the course is offered.
  2. Items needed locally in support of a specific, time-limited program or activity may be exempted.
  3. Items that are part of traveling deposit collections may be exempted.
  4. Items that are not owned by the library itself may be exempted.

Partial Participation:

Libraries that choose not to be a full participant, as defined above, must choose one of the categories of partial participation listed below.

Option A. All But Non-Print - Does not lend and cannot borrow non-print materials.

Option B. All But Non-Print and New Books - Does not lend and cannot borrow non-print materials or new books.

The following information prefaced the email ballot whose approval ratified the policy above...

Since July 17th 2004, the member libraries of Minerva have engaged in a six-month open ILL trial period. As agreed by the Users Council at its meeting of December 15th, 2004 we will now vote electronically on whether to continue the current practice or go back to the ILL practices and procedures that existed prior to the trial.

Several concerns were raised at the December 15th meeting about the loaning (and loan periods) of materials designated as "new." There was also substantial discussion of this topic by the Executive Committee on January 3rd, as we dealt with the construction of a ballot. The issues around "new" materials are more complex than we realized, and we decided that more discussion is needed before we propose any tweaking of the current (open ILL) arrangement. Although many consortia across the nation engage in wide-open resource sharing, we understand that this is new territory for us in Minerva. The Executive Committee would like to engage in more study of the "new" materials issue, with a goal of discussing this again at the next full Users Council meeting in the spring. We (especially those of us representing public libraries) would like to hear more from Minerva participants regarding their experiences with open lending and borrowing of "new" materials. We will also look into how other consortia deal with these items. We can then formulate and propose a policy that will work best for our users and for our Minerva libraries...

Clearly, adjustments to any policy must be made if needed and wanted by the membership, or if the situation warrants. The Executive Committee (as well as the full Users Council) is committed to continuing the exploration and discussion of this issue.
June 23, 2007