Find More Illinois is expanding statewide resource sharing by providing access to a growing number of library holdings in one interlibrary loan platform.
Anyone can use Find More Illinois to search multiple Illinois library catalogs in a single discovery interface, and patrons and staff of participating libraries can log in to place interlibrary loan requests. Library staff have access to a staff interface for request management and reports. Filled requests are delivered to the requesting library through the RAILS delivery service.
For some libraries, it may provide an affordable alternative to OCLC for interlibrary loan and/or as a source of cataloging records.
Participation is open to any interested Illinois library of any type, and fees are subsidized by RAILS to make participation affordable for all sizes and types of libraries. Joining now is an opportunity to help lead Illinois libraries toward seamless statewide resource sharing.
Find More Illinois Services
- The ability to search for and request items in all participating standalone library and consortial catalogs
- Book reviews, tables of contents, and cover art, when available
- Patron access to place and manage their own requests
- Staff interface for request management
- Training, consulting, technical support, and vendor relationship management from RAILS staff
- Patron authentication against the local ILS via SIP2 or OpenAthens, or against uploaded patron records for libraries without the capacity to connect directly to their ILS
- Optional NCIP connectivity to streamline request processing (the library may incur additional expenses on the ILS side if NCIP needs to be added to their vendor contract)
- MARC record uploads into the FMI union database, updated monthly or at a frequency of the library’s choosing
- Real-time status of local holdings via Z39.50 (when possible with the library’s catalog software)
- Statistical reporting
- Quick redirects from local OPAC search results to Find More Illinois via OpenURLs, and from FMI items to the local OPAC (Some ILS vendors only support general redirects, but others pass search terms between SHAREit and the local ILS.)
- Quality MARC records available to download for local use
Find More Illinois does not replace catalog software or LLSAP membership. Its purpose is to simplify resource sharing between participants. For more details, view a comparison of FMI and LLSAP functionality.
If your library is nonautomated and doesn’t already have catalog software, there are some special considerations you’ll want to review.
Enhanced Borrowing
The Enhanced Borrowing service pilot is under evaluation and changes to the existing program may occur due to the information gathered from the duration of this pilot program. Currently, we are unable to include any additional libraries to this pilot program.
Need More Information?
Contact RAILS Find More Illinois staff. We are available to schedule demos and in-depth conversations with individual libraries or groups of libraries.