Author Archives: Robin

A Document Delivery Milestone: 400,000 ILLiad Requests

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We’re celebrating a milestone here on the library team; the counter has tipped from 399,999 to 400,000 requests in ILLiad. This means that since 2009, the ILL team at the MSK Medical Library has processed 400k requests for books, articles, standards, dissertations, meeting abstracts, conference papers, tables of contents, and more for researchers at MSK and on the flip side, for libraries all over the world who request items from our collection.

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We’ve learned some tricks here and there to fill these requests. One blog [now defunct] referred to our specialization as Forensic Bibliographic Reconstruction and I, for one, take that as a huge compliment. Most requests come to us replete with all the fields filled, others take more research. I’ve seen requests for “The Smith Article from last week” or “Not sure.” Sometimes it can be more of a scavenger hunt or a wild goose chase. We usually get the article in the user’s hands.

We provide this service at no cost to the user, anyone with an MSK email and ID number, and as long as it’s relevant to work done at MSK. We’ve processed requests for physics, psychology, nutrition, medicine, physical therapy, chemistry, administration, HR, etc. But sometimes there are things we just can’t get.

With libraries around the world currently shut down or in various stages of quarantine, getting articles to users has been trickier. We are learning just how many items are only available from the shelves of shuttered libraries. The partnerships and channels of interlibrary loan have become more important than ever.    

I’m happy to use this opportunity to announce that ILLiad will soon be getting a new look! The webpages are being redesigned to be easier to use, especially on mobile devices. We’re currently working to make ordering and receiving articles easier for our user community. More details will follow in the coming weeks.

If you’d like to know more about our service or place a request, visit us at https://illiad.mskcc.org/illiad/Logon.html. We’re happy to answer any questions at ill@mskcc.org.

Kudos From Our Community

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We love sharing positive feedback we receive from the MSK community and beyond thanking us for our services. Here is a selection of kudos we’ve received over the last few weeks:

“Many thanks for sending these highly relevant papers and this absolutely fantastic search. This is so incredibly helpful and I am so grateful. The 3 papers you’ve included are directly relevant and so interesting. I really liked the first scale. Many thanks again for the fantastic Library service.”
Service: Literature Search

“Thank you so much for your exceptional service. It’s reassuring when I see that one of our requests is routed to your facility, because I know that rare is the time that you won’t come through for us. We appreciate you!”
Service: Document Delivery 

“I love librarians!!! Super smart people! Thank you for your time.”
 
 
Need research support, or just have a question – Ask Us!

Three Questions – Rebecca Meng

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Next up in our Three Questions series, Rebecca Meng, Document Delivery Services Librarian.
 
What areas can you help MSK users with?
 
As a librarian on the Document Delivery Services team, I help people at MSK access scholarly materials that fall outside of MSK Library’s own specialized collection. Cancer affects the whole person, so the work and research going on at MSK covers a wide variety of disciplines—from nuclear physics to music therapy, machine learning to nutritional outcomes. It’s our team’s job to track down any resources needed to support research and evidence-based care.
 
What projects have you been working on recently?
 
Anyone who has used our services to request an article or book is familiar with ILLiad, the program we use to manage the flow of requests between our users here at MSK, our staff, and the other libraries and suppliers we work with. This year, ILLiad will be getting some much-needed upgrades—both behind the scenes, keeping our workflows efficient—and excitingly, on our public-facing webpages. We are working to customize the new ILLiad request pages for our MSK Library community. They will not only look nicer and more streamlined but will also be mobile-responsive and accessible.
 
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
 
Like many other city-dwellers who have been sheltering in place, I’d happily go almost anywhere right now. I’m especially looking forward to visiting family in New Jersey—not exactly a far-away land, but sitting in a suburban backyard eating a bowl of noodles prepared by my Dad is my current idea of pure luxury.