Guidelines For Expediting Delivery of Information Among Libraries
Participating in ASERL’s Kudzu Project
The members of this group will participate in the ASERL ILL Reciprocal Agreement. This agreement expands and, in some cases, replaces parts of the ASERL ILL Agreement of 1993. Kudzu expedited services supersede service levels documented in the 1993 agreement.
When a Kudzu library needs to obtain an item through interlibrary loan, they should use other Kudzu libraries as ‘lenders of first resort’ except where local arrangements dictate otherwise. All Kudzu members will include ‘KUDZU’ in the affiliation field of the OCLC ILL, DOCLINE, and ALA request forms.
A Kudzu member may request materials not currently available in that member’s collections, including books that are checked out.
The members of this group will give consideration to every loan request from another Kudzu library, including requests for recently published materials and materials in nonbook formats such as microform or videotape. It is understood that not everything is available for loan, and the rules on what is and is not available will vary from institution to institution.
The members of this group will give Kudzu requests priority in processing, including answering “No” as quickly as possible. The members of this group will utilize OCLC’s “Reasons for No.”
Requests for returnables should be processed and sent via expedited courier within 24 hours of receipt. Requests for nonreturnables should be processed and sent via Ariel (or similar) within 24 hours. It is understood that delivery of items from branch libraries or remote storage facilities may take longer to process.These time frames are targets and do not include weekends, holidays, or temporary extenuating circumstances that may exist at the supplying library.
The standard loan period between Kudzu members will be a minimum of 6 weeks with a 2 week renewal. The lending library may exercise discretion on the application of this minimum loan period on a case by case basis (e.g. loaning a videotape for 1 week rather than 6 weeks).
The borrowing library is responsible for any returnable material from the time it is shipped to the borrower until it is returned to the lender. If damage or loss occurs, the lender may request replacement or compensation.There will be no other library to library fees associated with this agreement, including overdue fines or nonrefundable processing charges. The borrowing privileges of a Kudzu library may be suspended only as a last resort.
All materials lent through this agreement are subject to recall by the lender and should be returned as soon as possible.
The standard method for returning an item to the lending library will be USPS book rate. All recalls will be sent via 2-day courier as soon as possible.
