Milestone Moment for Scranton's Interlibrary Loan Team

A milestone moment in early December highlights two University of Scranton staff members and the valuable services they provide to the academic community here and at 599 libraries in 25 countries. 

At the University’s Weinberg Memorial Library, Kevin Kocur, Interlibrary Loan Coordinator, and Melisa Gallo ’16, G’21, Interlibrary Loan and Collections Assistant, recently processed the 20 millionth borrowing request of Ex Libris RapidILL, a global interlibrary loan system Scranton has been part of for more than a decade. On Dec.13, they furnished access to content from the July 23, 1964, issue of “The Times Literary Supplement,” Vol. 63, Issue No. 3256, shown below, to a borrowing library at the University of Oklahoma. The team supports the University of Scranton community in a similar manner. 

“It’s rewarding when we find something very rare for our teachers, our students and our staff members,” said Kocur, who has shared his talents in this role for the past 11 years. 

He described a memorable loan that occurred during the pandemic. 

“One of our professors requested an item, and I contacted the author directly at a German Jesuit university, because everything was shut down. She scanned the pages and sent them right to us,” said Kocur. 

RapidILL engenders cooperation. 

“Harvard [University] will help us... and we provide items from our collection that they do not have. We also help smaller colleges, especially the Catholic universities in Pennsylvania. Around Philadelphia, there are a lot of smaller schools, and it is always rewarding to provide them with materials that they can’t purchase.” 

RapidILL connects libraries from around the world into a single place where they can share resources with reciprocal lending – there are no charges between members.  

“The RapidILL story is rooted back to 1997 when a devastating flood that destroyed half a million journals at Colorado State University led to the creation of a reciprocal resource-sharing system between several U.S. academic libraries – the start of an operating interlibrary loan system,” as reported by Laetitia Maarek in “20 Million Reasons to Celebrate" at the company's blog. 

“Over the past three years only, the RapidILL community has experienced exponential growth, going from 325 to over 600 libraries in 25 countries. Its members, [as of December], had placed an amazing 20 million requests to lend and borrow articles and book chapters within their network.” 

The entire process occurs in record time. RapidILL's company mission focuses on fast turnaround to end users, such as committed 24-hour request fulfillment. Kocur and Gallo consistently provide University loans within eight hours, well below the benchmark. 

“We are really proud of that, given the fact that we are a relatively smaller university when compared to Research-intensive Universities like Penn State, the University of Pennsylvania, and NYU. Those research-intensive schools usually comprise multiple libraries where even their smaller libraries could be equivalent in size to ours. Nonetheless, we have a collection that is strong enough to be lending to these major research-intensive universities. 

"And we get a benefit as well. Anything that we do not have, we can turn around quickly for our faculty and students,” said George Aulisio, Dean of the Weinberg Memorial Library. “We’re very happy to offer this service.

Gallo, as a recent graduate, echoed that sentiment from a student perspective. 

“I utilized the Interlibrary Loan services frequently as a student. ILL was a crucial resource because there were a variety of journal articles and books that would be needed for research, presentations, and projects,” said Gallo, who has been in her current role on the library staff for one year. During her undergraduate career, Gallo was a work study student in Circulation Services.

Another benefit of RapidILL system: ease of use.  

“In many cases, it’s automated. If an article or resource is indexed in a database, and we do not have it, they can just click a link, and the ILL form auto-populates with the citation information. In those cases, requesting an article is as easy as possible,” Aulisio said. 

Visit the library's webpage for details: HERE.

A Sample of Rare and Requested Interlibrary Loan Titles at the Weinberg Memorial Library

1. "The Chronicles of the last Jewish Gangster: from Meyer to Myron," by Myron Sugerman
2. "Ellen Robillard O'Hara," by Patricia Patton Lawhon
3. "Girl Around the World," by Dorothy Kilgallen