AccessLaw offering expedited ILL service to members

Submitted by Tom Boone on May 2, 2006 - 10:48am.

The AccessLaw consortium, which includes the the law libraries of the University of California at Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, University of Washington and Yale University, has implemented an ILL system for patrons at its member institutions. Here's an excerpt from Yale's AccessLaw Introduction page:

Through this service Yale Law faculty, staff and students may request circulating materials from any member of the AccessLaw consortium to be delivered to this library.

Patrons may request the material themselves from the law library web page.

All available material will be sent by the lending library via overnight mail. The loan period is for 28 days, with 2 renewals of 28 days each allowed.

The AccessLaw union catalog has been online for quite awhile now, but the addition of consortial borrowing to the system is a fantastic development. This is precisely the kind of resource sharing all library consortia should be exploring and implementing. While plenty of consortia do already offer expanded ILL services to member institutions, the integration of this particular service into its member websites and catalogs brings the service directly to the patrons. I hope this is a sign of things to come for all law libraries.

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