Own not loan: Different request sources for purchase lists

The interlibrary loan (ILL) department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign implemented an Own Not Loan program in 2002. The program failed due to slow turnaround time and was suspended until a better workflow could be designed. In 2008, librarians reassessed the program when the following resources became available: an acquisitions librarian who had previously worked in ILL, funding through an internal grant, and a graduate assistant trained in ILL processes. The major change between the original program and the second one was the source of the requests. In 2002, the requests were generated through the ILL department, which-unlike many other ILL operations-processes only those difficult requests that cannot be handled through I-Share, the statewide consortial borrowing program. In 2008, however, requests were generated from those requests that I-Share had been unable to fill. The article discusses the differences between the 2002 and the 2008 programs and explains how the changes made the current program successful.