Request 1000000

Who wants to be a millionaire? Sorry, we can't help with that. Who wants to know more about the one millionth request created in the NHAIS ILL System since its 2019 launch? Read on...

SHAREit request #1000000 was submitted by Cherie at Meredith Public Library at 6:05 p.m. on Thursday, January 22, although she didn't notice the number at the time. The request wasn't for The Frozen River or James or The Berry Pickers (our top three most-requested titles in the ILL system last year). It was for a 1941 book that didn't show up anywhere on last year's most-requested list: Burt's Danish-Norwegian-English dictionary in two parts; Danish-Norwegian-English, English-Danish-Norwegian.

The request was routed to Keene Public Library--the sole holding library for this title in the NHAIS ILL System. The day after the request was submitted, the book was retrieved from Keene's shelves and Alice marked the request Shipped at 4:51 p.m. on Friday, January 23. A lender's note was added at the same time: "This may be hard to read-very small print." The next van pick-up was scheduled for Monday but a major winter storm kept all vans off the road that day. On Wednesday, January 28, Steve was on the Southwest-A van route and picked up three bins at Keene which were brought back to the State Library in Concord for sorting.

 

(Below, we've exposed a bit more of the routing slip than usual so you can see the request number. Normally, you just need the Route To: information exposed. Anything more risks getting that information separated from the book.) 

After pausing for pictures, Steve put the book into Meredith's bin. Two days later Laura loaded the bin into her van (LB5--"the best van" according to Laura) for Friday's Lakes Region route. She reached Meredith Public Library right around its opening time (9 o'clock) and the request was marked Received  by Cherie at 10:13 a.m. on Friday, January 30.

That's the lender-to-borrower portion of the story of just one request out of 3,624 requests created by 215 libraries in the NHAIS ILL System during the week of January 18. The counts for that week are a bit below average, perhaps because of the holiday on January 19.