This brings to mind an analogy that many network members continue to stand under a "rain cloud," waiting for that day when ALL of their holdings will be reflected in SERHOLD. "If I wait long enough," they convince themselves, "eventually LOCATORplus (NLM's OPAC) will list every serial title that I own." Maybe not: as long as the title is no where to be found in LOCATORplus, you won't be able to link the bibliographic record (NLM unique ID) to a holding record in SERHOLD. Simply put: NO NLM Unique ID = NO SERHOLD record! What's an ILL person to do? For starters: get out of the rain! (Besides, you could catch cold!!)

You could be helping things along by submitting a request to have NLM add the serial title to their OPAC. Then, you would be able to add a new holding record in SERHOLD for that stranded serial title.

Please review the two links listed below that address the steps to take to submit a request for adding serial titles. The first link displays NLM's policy statement for determining criteria to add non-NLM titles to the LOCATORplus database for SERHOLD reporting; the second link is an NLM LOCATORplus Bibliographic Data Addition/Modification Form which needs to be filled out and sent via U.S. Mail to the address on the form.

PLEASE MISTER POSTMAN: Patience is a Virtue

Members are reminded to update their serial holdings at least once or twice a year. DOCLINE's ability to function as a robust interlibrary loan routing and referral system relies on the ability for each member to maintain accurate and current holding records in SERHOLD.

As you begin to take that first step in updating your holdings by generating the Holdings report, please remember "Patience is a Virtue":

The Holdings Report is a batch-run program; your report request is queued and generated overnight at NLM -- the report is NOT generated or run immediately on request; and


When you retrieve the report the following morning by clicking on a message hyperlink, remember that you are downloading that report from the server at NLM. Depending on the file size of your report (that is, the size of your holdings) and the connectivity, the download could take minutes, NOT nanoseconds. Same goes for sending the report file to your laser printer. So step away from that desk, get a cup of coffee! - visit the water cooler (a.k.a. "bubbler") - stretch - give yourself a break! YOU DESERVE IT!!



THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD: DOCLINE Milestone

NLM's DOCLINE Team recently made note of the following milestone since DOCLINE was first introduced on the web - as of February 21, 2002, six million requests were entered into DOCLINE !




The BORROWER: the Health Sciences Library at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts.




The LENDER: the University of Washington Health Sciences Library in Seattle, Washington.




As of this writing, the current number of DOCLINE requests is 6,105,372



and c-o-u-n-t-i-n-g ….

We'd also like to highlight the following milestones since the implementation of SERHOLD on the web:

• 2,235 libraries have updated 331,230 holdings
• 1,543 libraries have deleted 11,796 holdings
• 2,983 libraries currently show 1,371,991 holdings
• Holdings reported comprise 50,906 unique serial titles

COME TOGETHER: REGIONAL ILL MEETING Hailed a Great Success!

On Friday, May 10th, we held the Annual ILL Meeting at the Hoagland Pincus Center an the University of Masssachusetts in Shrewsbury, MA. In spite of the glorious weather forecast, seventy attendees were present for the day's events. Highlights included:

Elaine Martin, Director for the Regional Medical Library (NN/LM NER office and the University of Masssachusetts Medical School's Lamar Soutter Library,) offered the Welcome Address.

CISTI's Naomi Krym gave the keynote speech on building a successful ILL service. The Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information) has made continual efforts to introduce systems efficiencies into their document delivery processes, while at the same time maintaining quality customer service. To view Naomi's Powerpoint slide presentation in its entirety, simply click on the following hyperlink: {server}\{directory}\Naomi Krym Presentation.ppt.

A series of scintillating systems updates were served up by several sages on the stimulating subject of resource sharing: Ed Donnald educated us on EFTS and NLM's nod for the electronic payment system to go "national"; Jay Daly provided us with an overview of QuickDOC's new release - version 2.00; Mark Tullos from OCLC offered a slide presentation on the ILLiad software package; and Mark Goldstein from the NN/LM NER office concluded with news and updates from NLM on DOCLINE.

Following a scrumptious lunch, there were two breakout sessions. The first session dealt with a discussion of problems and issues facing both hospital libraries and resource libraries. Deb Sibley (NN/LM NER) and Mark Goldstein (NN/LM NER) respectively moderated simultaneous sessions. The second session initiated three separate, but simultaneous discussions for each of the ILL management systems represented by the attendees: the QuickDOC discussion group was moderated by Jay Daly (QuickDOC Software); the CLIO discussion group was moderated by Margaret Whitlock (Baystate Medical Center);; and the ILLiad discussion group was co-moderated by Mark Tullos (OCLC) and Susan Lieberthal (Harvard Medical School).

And to round off the day's events, Mary Piorun (UMMS, Lamar Soutter Library) presented the group with a prize perspective on the Regional Library's participation in the Maine EDD (Electronic Document Delivery) project.

On behalf of everyone at the NN/LM NER office, we'd like to thank all of the presenters and attendees for making this a successful ILL Meeting and we look forward to seeing everyone back next year!

YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT: Membership Certificates

But if you try sometime, you just might find, you just might find … a certificate from the National Library of Medicine in your mailbox!

Membership certificates for the five-year period 2001-2006 will be mailed out later this summer. Lists of Full Members and Affiliate Members for New England Region 8 are being sent to the printers in June. We hope to have certificates in everyone's possession by September. We appreciate everyone's patience, but there have been a tremendous amount of updates as we proceed with the verification of data.

THANK YOU.

REMINDER

If you haven't updated your holdings in SERHOLD in a long time, now would be a good time to do so. If you need assistance updating your holdings in SERHOLD - or - you would like a SERHOLD "refresher" course - please contact Mark Goldstein either by phone - 508-856-5964 …

… or by Email - mark.goldstein@umassmed.edu.