Interlibrary cooperation: from ILL to IAIMS and beyond

A recent solicitation over the MEDLIB-L e-mail discussion list revealed ove r thirty diverse examples of hospital library-based interlibrary cooperativ e initiatives currently underway. Many are familiar and have been featured in the professional literature. Most go unreported and unrecognized however , comprising invisible resource-sharing infrastructures that hospital libra rians painstakingly piece together in order to provide their clients with e xpanded service options. This paper, drawing from the MEDLIB-L survey as we ll as descriptions in the published literature, provides a broad overview o f such recent interlibrary cooperative efforts. Examples include interlibra ry loan networks, collective purchasing initiatives, holder-of-record or un ion catalog access agreements, arrangements to provide e-mail and Internet access, and consortia to share electronic resources. Examples were chosen b ased on the initiatives' diversity of participants, and represent a wide ra nge of locations across the United States. Such initiatives focus on local, statewide, or regional collaboration, and several involve partnerships bet ween academic medical center libraries and regional hospital libraries. An early example of a hospital-based interlibrary cooperative IAIMS effort is described, pointing to future possibilities involving the Internet and regi onal hospital system intranets.