Lender Strings

The sort order for the Lender string reflects Iowa's inter-library loan protocols which have been in place since the old ILITE days. ILITE was a teletype system used back in the 1970's and 80's by Iowa libraries to request and loan library items . The purpose of the inter-library loan protocols (then and now) is to "spread the load", and equalize the borrowing and lending across all Iowa libraries. It was implemented so that the burden of lending did not fall solely to the large libraries and universities. It is working as intended, and it is important that libraries use the system-generated lender strings and do not circumvent the system.

Lender strings are generated and sorted like this:

• First, by preferred lenders (if any are specified);
• then by size, (smallest to largest);
• next by library type (like type borrows from like type: publics from publics, schools from schools, etc);
• and then finally, geographically by District (which includes about 15 counties);
• Then the whole lender string is randomized so the same libraries don't get selected for the same titles.

All of this is done programmatically based on the sorting algorithm.

In the new SILO ILL system we added the option to set a collection of Preferred Lenders as a concession to circumventing the automated protocol-based lender string.  The libraries listed as the Preferred Lenders assures that those libraries get added to the Lender String first (if they hold the item.) Using the Preferred Lenders is faster and easier than manually selecting a Lender String. Set the list of preferred lenders under the "My Library" tab, "Preferred Lenders".