The University of California Libraries: A Plan for Development (1977)

92 The University of California Libraries
At this point, the steps which have so far been accomplished
to improve delivery and use of materials within the two regions may
be summarized as follows:
1. Request transmission has been speeded up by the use of TWX,
and (in the South) by use of the "round robin" system mentioned
earlier.
2. Internal procedures for handling inter-campus loans have
been streamlined on some campuses, and priority given to such loans.
3. Direct borrowing procedures are now in effect for students
from all nine campuses.
4. Some special materials, notably maps and documents, are
lent directly between the library departments involved, bypassing
interlibrary loan procedures.
5. Jitneys are used to speed transportation of materials between
campuses, and in some instances either the driver or another
staff member acts as proxy for borrowers from the home campus.
There are still further steps that need to be taken, however.
TWX should be used for transmission of all requests, and when the
on-line public catalog system described in Chapter V is implemented
it should take over this function, providing even greater speed and
avoiding cumbersome manual procedures. Special forms and containers
for inter-campus movements of materials would allow faster processing,
and improvements in the campus mail systems would expedite retrieval
of materials from branch libraries. It also appears that inter-campus
loans would be expedited, at least on some campuses, if the procedures
and staff involved were completely separate from traditional interlibrary
loan activities.
For delivery of materials at the regional level, then, the plan
recommends the following:
1) That TWX be used for transmission of all inter-campus
lending requests until this function is assumed by the on-line catalog
system;