The National Library of Medicine and the DOCLINE Team proudly acknowledge that March 15, 2006 marks 21 years of service to the health library community for DOCLINE.

DOCLINE was initially implemented in March 1985 as a command line, character based system for placing and routing interlibrary loan requests among the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. In fiscal year 1987, borrowers entered 788,105 interlibrary loan requests into DOCLINE and there were 1,435 participating libraries.

Today, DOCLINE serves more than 3,200 libraries in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. DOCLINE libraries currently report more than 1.4 million serial holdings. DOCLINE also provides select international medical libraries the ability to serve users in their regions via Loansome Doc. International libraries can also request ILL material via DOCLINE, primarily from NLM.

In fiscal year 2005, over 2.4 million interlibrary loan requests were entered into DOCLINE. The fill rate for requests was 91.2% and the average number of libraries a request must route to before completion was just 1.2.

To celebrate DOCLINE’s birthday, libraries found a festive Tugger on the Login page (http://docline.gov) as well as a new DOCLINE 21st Birthday desktop wallpaper and updated classic blue & gold wallpaper version. Download and enjoy your favorite DOCLINE wallpaper at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/docline/docline_wallpaper.html

The DOCLINE Team and the regional coordinators thank DOCLINE users for their dedicated service to health professionals and the public in need of biomedical literature and health information. Thanks, too, for years of support of the DOCLINE system and members’ many ideas for improving DOCLINE.

Happy Birthday DOCLINE!
The DOCLINE Team (Barbara, Brent, Cheri, Deena, Karen, Maria, Sulane, Evelyn, Beth and Tugger)

DOCLINE Keeps Moving On, Version 2.7 Is Here

DOCLINE 2.7 introduces several major enhancements to our users. In order to best utilize these features, please review the following list of suggested action items for libraries now that DOCLINE 2.7 is available. Click Help in the DOCLINE menu to access the updated online manual. Click FAQ to view the updated Frequently Asked Questions.

Library Groups

If you are the contact or lead person for a library group, please consider whether your library group continues to need the serial holdings union list products. If your library group does not need union list products, please notify Beth Wescott, so that she can disable the future production of these system intensive reports.

Update Institution Record

Services & Fees (Institutions / Update / Services & Fees)

• Fills Urgent Patient Care Request - indicate whether your library will provide service for urgent patient care requests. Urgent Patient Care requests should be processed and shipped immediately. The service level is intended for emergency / urgent clinical care for patients. Lenders should have the staffing necessary to frequently monitor DOCLINE for new requests, and must process all Urgent Patient Care requests received by the end of the day to avoid rerouting by Time-Triggered Actions.
• Fills Rush Request - indicate whether your library will provide service for rush requests. Rush requests are defined as same day service. Lenders should have staffing necessary to periodically monitor DOCLINE for new requests, and must process all Rush requests received by the end of the day to avoid rerouting by Time-Triggered Actions.
• Libraries are encouraged to review the remaining elements on the Services & Fees page and update as needed. In particular, adding ILL service comments, verifying your fees, verifying your copy and loan policies, and adding any Loan comments fields that would be helpful to other libraries. For example, in Loans Services and Fees, if you loan Journals, in the Journals comments field indicate whether you loan bound volumes and/or unbound issues.

For information on recording fees, see the FAQ at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/doc_base_fee_surcharge.html

For a description of how routing works, see: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/doc_new_routing.html

Libraries are encouraged to review the remaining elements on the DOCLINE Options page and update as needed. In particular, please review your library’s “Receive by” and “Send by” delivery methods.

Routing Table (Institutions / Update / DOCLINE Options / Edit Routing Table)

Review your library’s Routing Table and update as needed. Delete libraries that may have closed or ceased DOCLINE participation since your last Routing Table update. The DOCLINE status (closed, inactive, non-DOCLINE library) is displayed next to the library name in your Routing Table.

Library Groups that your library belongs to have been added to your Workspace. These can be added to your Routing Table. Follow the SE/A region’s guidance on Routing Table maintenance or contact Beth Wescott directly for assistance and advice. If the Library Groups listed in your Workspace are incorrect, please contact you’re the SE/A office to update your membership in the appropriate library group.

Save your changes as you work on your Routing Table. Once all changes have been made, click Request Approval to notify NN/LM SE/A that your Routing table is ready for review. The message “Routing Table awaiting approval” will display on your Home page. Once the SE/A staff has approved your changes, the message on your Home page is removed

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