ABOUT THIS SITE

The Australian Interlibrary Resource Sharing (ILRS) Directory is the primary source for finding a contact for interlibrary loan and document delivery services within Australia and for discovering information about interlibrary loan charges and policies. It is also the directory of Australian National Union Catalogue (NUC) symbols. Australian libraries participating in the Australian interlending community are eligible for entry in the Directory, which also lists organisations such as art galleries, museums, historical societies and commercial services. The Directory also contains entries for some overseas libraries, mainly in the South East Asia/Pacific region. There is a separate directory for New Zealand libraries.

• ILRS Directory Entries
• What are NUC symbols?
• Directory Administration
• Directory History
• Adding and Updating Entries

ILRS Directory entries

Each entry within the Australian ILRS Directory includes the name, address and contact details for the interlibrary lending or document delivery service. For libraries, the Directory lists their interlibrary loans policies, any special conditions which might apply, charging policy and what service levels eg Rush and Express.

The service providers are responsible for update of details themselves and do so via a series of online forms.

What are NUC symbols?

National Union Catalogue (NUC) symbols are unique identifiers for organisations which contribute information to the Australian National Bibliographic Database (ANBD) and/or to Trove. They are issued by the National Library of Australia.

NUC symbols are widely used by the Australian library and research community for identification and communication within the national and regional networks. They identify which organisations hold material which is listed on the ANBD, Trove and other regional bibliographic networks, and are used by the Libraries Australia Document Delivery (LADD) service as well as other ILL and document delivery networks. They also identify the source of catalogue records contributed to the ANBD and/or Trove. They are used in the union catalogues published by the National Library and can be found in bibliographies and other listings.

If your library or organisation does not contribute holdings to the ANBD and/or Trove and does not participate in a formal interlibrary lending network, a NUC symbol is not required.

A NUC symbol usually reflects the library's name at the time it was assigned. It is not changed routinely to reflect changes in the organisation name. If two or more libraries merge it is preferable for the new organisation to adopt one of the existing NUC symbols. New symbols are assigned in more complex situations, such as when an organisation's collection is split between several libraries.

The Directory includes superseded symbols with references to the later form of the symbol where one exists. Symbols, once withdrawn, are never reused.

Directory Administration

The Australian ILRS Directory is hosted by the National Library of Australia. The ILRS Directory administration team assigns NUC symbols, processes requests for new entries in the Directory and assists users.

Queries and comments are always welcome - Contact ILRS Directory Administration for feedback.

History of the Directory

The Australian ILRS Directory succeeds the Guide to the National Union Catalogue of Australia (published 1973-1985), which was the successor to the National Union Catalogue of the National Library of Australia (1970). The Australian ILRS Directory was published in print 1986-1997 and online since June 1996.

This Web-accessible version of the Directory, which is updated online by the listed providers themselves, was released in March 2001.

Adding and Updating Entries

To apply for an entry in this directory use the New Entry form (located on the Contact page). To update your entry use Search to find the entry and select the "Edit this record" button at the bottom of the page.

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