LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.BITNET (PACS Forum) (01/15/90)
From: Gary Freiburger <GFREIBUR@UMAB> Subject: Electronic ILL Requests This is a resonse to Joan Cecora's request for information on electronic ILL requests. At the University of Maryland Health Sciences Library we accept requests in two ways. First - via EARS (Electronic Access to Reference Services) where a patron can fill in a form on-screen for either a photocopy or a book. When they finish th e request is shipped off to our electronic mail system and "mailed" to the Circulation Department. If we own the item, they photocopy it and send it out. If we don't own it, the request is forwarded (usually on paper at this point) t o the Reference Department for verification and ILL processing. Second - we have two locally mounted databases - a subset of MEDLINE (all English language journals to which we subscibe - 3 years worth) and one years worth of all seven sections of Current Contents (R). Note that all citations i n the MEDLINE subset (we call it MaryMED) SHOULD be held by us. When a patron is viewing citations s/he can press return for the next citation, "B" to go back, or "P" for photocopy. If they choose the photocopy option we grab the citation da ta from the database, get their name and address from the password file and bundle this up as an electronic mail message - again sent to the Circulation Departmen t. The rest of this message consists of screen dumps from the photocopy/ILL request portion of the EARS system. (See Part II of this message)