Library Technology Guides

The Automation Vendor Interface Advisory Committee (AVIAC) has recommended that NISO establish a standards setting committee to focus on the development of a reciprocal borrowing standard to complement the interlibrary loan standard which is now being circulated for comment. AVIAC examined the proposed ILL standard and agreed with it. However, a concern of the Committee was that when local library systems are interfaced to permit library patrons to access systems in libraries other than their own, they are just as likely to go to the library where the item is held as to request it through interlibrary loan. (In fact, the Indiana State Library reimburses five times as many reciprocal borrowing transactions as interlibrary loan transactions.) The purpose of the proposed reciprocal borrowing standard is to support the exchange of patron information, within the terms of privacy restrictions the libraries agree to observe, thereby facilitating direct borrowing by patrons of cooperating libraries.