The deal with GIL

The University System of Georgia’s plans to suspend the GALILEO Interconnected Libraries (GIL) Express system have been postponed.

GIL Express is an online requesting service that allows universities to order books and reference materials from any library in the University System of Georgia. This system allows for the prompt exchange of materials between college campuses.

“I use GIL Express multiple times a semester,” said Michelle Flirt, a GCSU graduate student. “Our library does not have a great selection of books, and I need those outside resources GIL Express allows me to have in a quick amount of time in order to do the research that I need.”

The University System of Georgia planned to suspend this system in all 35 of their institutions due to a budget cut. The costs associated with GIL Express are mainly shipping costs through the courier service used to deliver the books. With the rising cost of gasoline, many of the courier services are charging an extra fee to cover the cost of gasoline.

GCSU is the fifth largest user of the GIL Express service, with 5,446 requests during the last fiscal year.

There is an alternate to the GIL Express system, called the Interlibrary Loan system. This is a nationwide system that accomplishes the same thing at GIL Express, but at a slower speed. Rhonda Adkins is the Library Assistant that is over the Interlibrary Loan system and deals with the borrowing and lending of materials through this service.

“GIL Express and Interlibrary loan are very similar,” said Adkins. “They allow students to have access to the same materials. GIL Express was done exclusively through University System of Georgia schools; whereas, Interlibrary Loan is done through universities nationwide. The reason that it is slower, and not as expensive as GIL Express, is that Interlibrary Loan uses the postal service to send and deliver materials, where GIL Express used UPS.”

Even though the shipping aspect of Interlibrary Loan is slower than GIL Express, others are quicker.

“One aspect of Interlibrary Loan that is faster than GIL Express is checkout. Items are already checked out to the patron in Interlibrary Loan. The patron will ask for their items, present their Bobcat card and all the staff has to do is desensitize before handing to the patron,” said Adkins.

Interlibrary Loan also has more options for students looking for research materials.

“With Interlibrary Loan, students have access to more materials and different formats of media that were not available through GIL Express,” said Adkins. “Interlibrary Loan also allows for students and faculty to request materials from universities all across the nation and even some foreign countries that are a part of this system.”

In order to make the most of Interlibrary Loan, Adkins has some advice when using this system.

“To make using Interlibrary Loan easier for students, they need to make sure that they request an article that they have a good citation for and know the author, title, and edition of the book that they are requesting,” said Adkins. “If students encounter problems, they can ask the reference librarian on duty, who is available during library hours.”

Dr. Elaine Whitaker is the Department of English, Speech, and Journalism Chair at GCSU and uses GIL Express to do research and keep up with what is going on in the world around her.

“One thing that eliminating GIL Express will do is now put the cost on GCSU,” said Whitaker. “Interlibrary Loan is paid for by Georgia College, where GIL Express is paid for by the University System of Georgia.”

This switch in systems would have cost GCSU approximately $14,000 in postage fees and would have required an increase in the staff for the Interlibrary Loan system.

“In order to prepare for the transition to Interlibrary Loan, we have a faculty member who is now over the lending aspect of Interlibrary Loan,” said Adkins. ” Also, all of our student workers who dealt with GIL Express are now assisting with Interlibrary Loan. Georgia College has also already made provisions for the cost of Interlibrary Loan.”

Many students and faculty rely on GIL Express to aid their research projects. This switch may cause many to change how they prepare for classes and assignments.

“I think that this is going to make all of us plan ahead more,” said Whitaker. “We assign most of our major projects at the beginning of the semester, so students have time to do their research and gather information. Students are going to have to think ahead and not wait until the last minute.”

Many students were upset by this system leaving and created a group on Facebook as a result.

“I started the Facebook group because I wanted people to be aware of what we are losing and bring some attention to this issue,” said Flirt. “GIL Express is a valuable resource and helps us all to be better students. Without it, many people are going to have to rethink how they get their resources.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 3 2008. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry