Interlibrary Loan - United States

United States

In 1886 U.L. Rowell, Librarian at the University of California, Berkeley, sought permission to begin Interlibrary Loan; his request was granted during the years 1894-1898.

In 1894 Rowell initiated U.C. Berkeley's first program of interlibrary lending, with the California State Library as partner. Later that year Rowell expanded the invitation for a group of libraries, such as NUCMC. Librarians then filled out a standardized form (i.e. an ALA Interlibrary Loan Request Form 2002) and sent it by postal mail to a library that owned a copy. This procedure is still used by the few libraries that are not members of an electronic interlibrary loan network.

Since the mid-1980s, searching for books located at other libraries has become easier, as many libraries have enabled their users to search their online catalogs at the library or over the Internet. Today, everyone can freely use WorldCat.org to identify needed items that are not owned by his or her local libraries.

The Ohio State University and others in Ohio began integrating campus library systems at an early date. In the 1960s, state funds supported the development of the Online Computer Library Center (at that time called the Ohio College Library Center). OCLC has since grown into an international organization with a database of 30 million entries representing materials held in more than 10,000 libraries.

Link+ is an interlibrary loan scheme in California and Nevada, and OhioLINK is the system used in Ohio, where the catalogues and databases of the state's libraries are joined electronically.

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