I would like to ask you all if you can wait before sending freebies on the van, please. We are extremely short handed, to the point where we may have to skip on some deliveries to ensure that all the libraries receive a delivery. Thank you for your consideration.
On tomorrow's Governor & Council Agenda is the following item:
"#50 Authorize the Division of Libraries to enter into a contract with Baker & Taylor, LLC, Charlotte, NC in the amount of $146,817 to provide Machine Readable Cataloging records for the New Hampshire Automated Information System. Effective upon G&C approval through June 30, 2028, with the option to renew for up to two addition three-year terms. 100% Federal Funds"
We have used OCLC as the source of MARC records to support the NHAIS ILL System for longer than I have been at the NH State Library (which is 25+ years). Back in June when our annual OCLC renewal came up we decided it was time to see if there were other options available to us that would allow all of the NHAIS ILL libraries to have direct access to a reliable source of high-quality MARC records and bring down our costs for this service.
We received two bids, one from OCLC and one from Baker & Taylor. The offerings were excellent from both organizations. The prices were vastly different and we moved forward with a contract for Baker & Taylor.
Governor and Council are expected to vote on the contract tomorrow, and if it is approved, we will move forward with implementing Z39.50 access to the BTCat database for all of our libraries in the next week or two. We will follow up with a roll-out of a full cataloging interface that any NHAIS ILL library that wishes to use can be set up on at no additional cost to them for the contracted set-up.
We were very impressed with the B&T interface and look forward to bringing a lot of cataloging resources to our libraries this fall.
We will post an update after the G&C vote on Wednesday.
If you want to see the RFB we issued you can find it at :
https://apps.das.nh.gov/bidscontracts/bids.aspx
It is called RFB-DNCR-2025-08 - MARC Record Source for NHAIS and the easiest way to find it is to search for "MARC" in the bid description and status/bid results of "awarded."
With the shortage of staff here at the State Library, we are going to temporarily move around most of the Capital District Route to Monday. We also need to shorten most of Southeast route on Mondays. These changes are indefinitely.
Monday’s combo Capital District/Southeast Van Route will go as follows:
Salem
Nashua
Amherst
Hooksett
Allenstown
Pembroke
Epsom
Chichester
Loudon
Canterbury
Hopkinton, Dunbarton, and Boscawen, will be done on Friday.
Please don’t forget to leave your bins easily accessible for the driver to pick up.
All the other stops on the Southeast Monday route:
Derry
Milford
Merrimack
Bedford
Manchester
will have pick-up/drop off on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
This Monday’s August 25th North Country Van Route will also be shortened. It will go as follows:
Franconia
North Woodstock
Lincoln
Thornton
Campton
These libraries will receive a delivery later in the week:
Dalton (Tuesday)
Monroe (Wednesday)
Lyme (Wednesday)
Lebanon (Wednesday)
Grantham (Thursday)
I know this isn’t ideal, but it’s the best we can offer at this time. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.
Best,
Jill M Witham
Van Service Coordinator
New Hampshire State Library
We are in desperate need of overflow bins. If you are hanging on to any, please return them to the State Library. If you send back an overflow bin, but keep 2 labeled bins, we really need a labeled bin back when we pick up and drop off. Thank you.
The Capital Route will be cut short today [Thursday, Aug. 14]. The only libraries that will receive delivery today on that route are:
Boscawen
Canterbury
Loudon
Chichester
Epsom
Pembroke
Allenstown
Also moving forward for the next few weeks we will be delivering to most of the Capital Route on Monday, with the exception of Dunbarton, they will receive their delivery on Fridays.
I know this isn’t ideal, but it’s the best we can do at this time.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to either myself, or Mindy Atwood.
Best,
Jill M Witham
Van Service Coordinator
New Hampshire State Library
603 271-2206
Jill.m.witham@dncr.nh.gov
Attentive ILLers will note something new at the bottom of the Lender's Full Record Display for returnable requests in Pending or Will Supply/In Process status. It's an option to attach an electronic document, giving you an alternative to sending photocopies of pages through the van service.
The option has always been there for non-returnable requests and it was supposed to be there for returnable requests as well. Without it, lenders couldn't change a returnable request to non-returnable. When would they need to do that? Very rarely--but it did come up recently when the State Library received a request for an older booklet that was just a few pages and it was determined it would be easier to scan the pages into a PDF and electronically send that than to package the item for van transport. Another circumstance might be a borrower note saying they just needed to see pages 48-50 or just wanted the bibliography. Without that Upload Document button displaying on a returnable request, though, it couldn't be changed in the system to non-returnable. You could select Shipped (non-returnable) from the status change options but nothing would change when you hit Submit.
Now that the Upload Document button is displayed, you can attach your file and then choose Shipped (non-returnable). Once you see an address in the Document URL field (immediately above the Upload Document button), you can hit Submit. This can only be done on the Lender's Full Record Display, reached by clicking on the title in the status list.
It's more common to change non-returnable requests into returnable ones. Travel guides and exam prep books are frequently cataloged as serials, which are treated as non-returnable requests by the ILL program. Chances are the person requesting the latest PSAT/NMSQT practice book or Paris travel guide wants to borrow the whole thing, not just get photocopies of a few pages. Dealing with that is shown in the 5-minute video Placing ILL Requests: Travel Guides.
To see attaching documents to a request in action--and retrieving them later--watch the 18-minute video Placing ILL Requests: Copies from Magazines.
Remember that the ILL program treats returnable and non-returnable requests differently when the borrower marks the request Received. For non-returnables, the request immediately changes to Complete status. Returnables go to Received status and will need to be returned by the borrower and checked in by the lender before becoming Complete. In statistics reports, you'll see returnable requests called loans while non-returnables are labeled copies.
As noted here Monday, the NHAIS ILL System was offline briefly on Tuesday night, Aug. 5. It was further noted that I would write about any software changes today--but the updates installed last night were all for behind-the-scenes functions so you won't see any changes in the program.
