Services in OCLC

Library and Archives Canada (formerly National Library of Canada, OCLC symbol: NLD) is happy to announce that effective immediately, our ILL management system is able to exchange real-time ILL system messages with OCLC. This means that the request in OCLC will reflect its current status; e.g., if we indicate SHIPPED, the item is being sent. Other follow-up messages (e.g. renewal requests, status queries, overdue notices) must be exchanged through OCLC.

We will continue to offer a loan/copy service for items held in the collection as well as locations service for Canadian publications. We are a good source to try for Canadian publications including books, serials, theses, newspapers on microfilm. We have recently amalgamated with the National Archives of Canada and are also now providing a loan service for archival microfilm.

In order to use our services within OCLC:

1. Send us a request via OCLC by entering our lender symbol, NLD, five times.

2. Ensure that your address in the Ship-to field is up-to-date and clearly formatted containing only the postal delivery address. This field is being used to print an address label for our loans. Do not include any other extraneous information in this field.

Enter the name of the library and street information in full, rather than an abbreviated version. Type a slash (/) to separate each line of the address; substitute a hyphen for any slash that is part of your library's name or address. Our ILL system reads the slash as a new-line indicator.

3. Please ensure that you provide other contact information elsewhere in the request such as your telephone number, fax, Ariel and e-mail address.

4. If we can't fill your request, we will send an explanatory note and, if applicable, alternate Canadian library locations.

5. Many requests sent to us from the U.S.A. are for Canadian theses. Please remember that Canadian theses that were produced in microfiche format between 1998 and 2002 are available online, through our  Theses Canada Portal. This is a good place to check before you send us a request.

6. Third-party requests:

a) Our lending service can accommodate libraries that send requests as part of a centralized service, with the Ship-to address being different from the address of the requesting institution.

b) For the delivery of articles by fax, Ariel or post-to-web, we will be responding only to the library that sent the request to us, since we have largely automated this part of our operation, and your library symbol is linked to your own coordinates in our directory.

7. Locations service:

As the national library in Canada, we have additional resources to help locate material in other Canadian libraries. If we are unable to supply a Canadian title ourselves, we are now indicating UNFILLED on the OCLC request. At the same time, we will automatically search for alternate Canadian library locations. A list of the Canadian library symbols will then be sent as part of our reply through OCLC. You may want to contact these libraries directly for the loan.

Information about Canadian libraries and their ILL policies can be found in the Directory of "Symbols and Interlibrary Loan Policies in Canada".