{"id":567,"date":"2016-06-07T15:28:53","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T15:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.oclc.org\/next\/?p=567"},"modified":"2019-06-26T16:32:05","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T16:32:05","slug":"time-travelling-ill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.oclc.org\/next\/time-travelling-ill\/","title":{"rendered":"Time travelling ILL"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"time-travel-ill\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

The Twilight Reference Zone<\/h2>\n

Picture if you will an American public library. Any library will do. A smartly dressed, clean-shaven man in his mid-40s approaches the reference desk.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I help you find something?\u201d asks the librarian.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d says the man, \u201cI\u2019m looking for a copy of Bats and Bones, a Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mystery<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me see if I can find that for you,\u201d says the young woman behind the desk as she checks FirstSearch.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust one thing, please,\u201d asks the man as he waits. \u201cI\u2019m looking for a specific edition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrolling past titles, the librarian says, \u201cOh?\u201d without looking up.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d says the man. \u201cI\u2019m looking for the edition that will be published in the year 2102.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Cue creepy music.]<\/p>\n

This library has entered\u2026the Twilight Reference Zone.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The story you have just read is true. Dramatized\u2026but true. It\u2019s from a real ILL request for that very Campground Mystery<\/em>, to be published nearly 90 years in the future. How can this be? You be the judge. Did the requestor:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Know something about the future of kids\u2019 mysteries that we don\u2019t?<\/li>\n
  2. Arrive at the library in a TARDIS?<\/li>\n
  3. Make a typo when entering the request?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I\u2019m going to choose to believe \u201coption 2,\u201d since it\u2019s the most fun.<\/p>\n

    At OCLC, we have records for ILL requests for items that will be published as far into the future as 2915 and as far into the past as 429. So maybe Dr. Who is just a big fan of interlibrary loan.<\/p>\n

    Or it\u2019s a typo.<\/p>\n

    But it\u2019s a typo that points out two, time-related aspects of ILL that don\u2019t get as much attention as they should: the future importance of transactional data and what we can learn about the past from the publication dates of (non-time-travelling) ILL requests.<\/p>\nILL data can be the fuel for librarians\u2019 time-travelling expeditions. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n

    All data is future metadata<\/h2>\n

    We\u2019re used to thinking about transactional data as a kind of throw-away byproduct of a process. We may aggregate some of it (number of check-outs, total circulation, aggregated requests by subject). But each individual activity may contain information that isn\u2019t tracked.<\/p>\n

    Until it is. And since digital storage space is now inexpensive and fast, we tend to capture a lot of data that can become metadata for better understanding our systems and users. An easy example of this is thinking about ILL as an indicator of collection strengths (loans) or weaknesses (requests). Not a particular item\u2014that\u2019s pretty easy to spot if you find yourself requesting the same resource over-and-over\u2014but of a certain subject, industry, author or\u2026time period. And if the transactional data in an ILL request has an error, that\u2019s going to skew the aggregated results that you\u2019re using for evaluation.<\/p>\n

    This isn\u2019t meant as a guilt trip about typos. It\u2019s a reminder that your transactional data has great value to your future analyses. The ILL request you fulfill today is a data point for a librarian of the future.<\/p>\n

    Looking back at looking back<\/h2>\n

    In our investigation into \u201cquestionable\u201d past and future ILL requests, we found that prior to 1905, the most requested ILL publication year was 1770\u00a0with\u00a0724 requests. 1776, by comparison, had only 494 requests.<\/p>\n

    What was so special about 1770? Beethoven and William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame) were born. The Boston Massacre occurred. But those wouldn\u2019t have triggered published editions from that year. What are the most popular requests published in 1770?<\/p>\n