Digital Interlibrary Loan

Small items that are too fragile to circulate on interlibrary loan are usually supplied through a photocopy. But photocopying often shortens the life of the original. The Library of Congress Collections Access, Loan and Management Division now scans this type of material and delivers the images via the Web. This makes public domain items widely accessible for current and future requests and contributes to the preservation of the original. Items protected by copyright are not scanned in this program.

If you received a message in response to an interlibrary loan request directing you to check this website for a digital copy of the item you requested, please examine the list of scanned titles by clicking on the appropriate link on the right. Scanned items in this list are linked to PDF files that can be viewed on your web browser, printed, or downloaded. Should you wish more information about the item, a link to its catalog record is also provided. A scanned item will be accessible from this page for at least six months from the time it was scanned. It will then be permanently accessible electronically from the Library of Congress catalog entry for the item, and an 856 tag will also be added for the DLC holdings record in OCLC.

About This Project

The pilot for the Digital ILL Project started in 2000, for the purpose of exploring the practicality of scanning, storing, and delivering materials that have actually been requested by patrons. This operation has since become known as "Scan-on-demand." For the purposes of the pilot, the titles selected were to be in the public domain, non-circulating because of physical condition, able to be captured in a relatively small file, and have a cataloging record in the Library of Congress catalog in which to place a link. During the Summer of 2002, the pilot went into production. There have now been over 150 items scanned for Interlibrary Loan requests.

Each item is first prepared by Collections Care staff, then scanned and archived as a 600 dpi TIFF image by Library of Congress Information Technology staff. The archived images are then converted to PDF format and stored as single-item files on a publicly accessible server. PDF was chosen as the format because of its ease of access and the ability to download and print the entire work as one file. A link to the PDF file is added to the LC public catalog record, enabling direct download of the entire work. Full color will be captured as well in JPEG files, viewable through page-turning software, also linked from the OPAC entry. The Library has also committed to capturing the content of scanned items through OCR of the PDF files. Access to the OCR files is currently being explored.

We invite your comments on the usefulness of these files and the project as a whole. Please send us your thoughts: ILL@loc.gov.