[Koha] Koha and ILL?

[Magnus Enger]

> At 09.44 06/10/2008, Magnus Enger wrote:
> 
> >Koha is not well known in Norway yet, but awareness of it is slowly
starting
> 
> >to grow... One of the features I think Norwegian librarians will be
looking
> >for is integrated support for inter-library loan. I have searched the
> >mail-list archives and the wiki for information about whether this is on
the
> 
> >horizon for Koha, but have not found anything substantial. This makes me
> >wonder: is ILL not seen as something that should be part of the ILS in
other
> 
> >parts of the world?
> >
> >I remember that some time ago a company called Relais International
released
> 
> >their ILL software as Open Source - so maybe this means ILL is seen as a
> >stand-alone application, rather than something that should be integrated
> into
> >the ILS?
> >http://www.relais-intl.com/relais/home/index.htm
> >
> >Any and all information/views on this is very welcome!
> 
> Koha don't have an ILL module.
> Because the main targets of Koha ILS (not huge public libraries, 
> schools libraries, private libraries) don't need a specific
> ILL module.

Are we saying Koha is only for small libraries, with modest needs? How about
academic libraries? 

> You can manage ILL transation usign special patrons (for you not for 
> the sistem) in the circulation module.

I'm not quite sure I can see how you would do that...

Lending documents to other libraries is of course trivial - you receive a
request in some form, register the library as a patron and send them the
book. Then Koha will be able to keep track of the due-date etc. 

Getting books from other libraries seems a bit more difficult, though.
Sending a request per e-mail might be OK, but how would you keep track of
which requests have been sent to which libraries? And when you get a book
from another library, for one of your patrons, what would you do to keep
track of who actually borrowed it and for how long? Copy-catalogue the book
into some hidden collection (that doesn't turn up when searching the OPAC)
and lend it to the patron from there? 

If you have some (other) solution to this I'm all ears! ;-) 

Regards, 
Magnus