NILDE (Network Inter-Library Document Exchange) is a web-based software for the service of Document Supply and Inter-Library Loan around which a community of libraries is formed in order to share their bibliographic resources in the spirit of reciprocal collaboration and, prevalently, in a free manner.
NILDE is, therefore, a software as well as a network of libraries that share the use of the software and a precise and innovative idea of service.
The constituting principles of the NILDE network are stated in its Rules and Regulation, the drafting of which the librarians themselves have contributed to, defining the commitments that each library assumes towards the other and the scope of the network. They can be so summarized:
- To guarantee maximum speed in locating, in requesting and in supplying documents
- To facilitate the spread and the use of a homogeneous standard of quality and participate in the Document Supply and Inter-Library Loan service
- To stimulate interlibrary cooperation at all levels, starting with Document Supply and InterLibrary Loan
The network is made up of libraries belonging to different countries, institutions and fields. To learn more, go to general, libraries and users statistics.
NILDE software was conceived in 2001 by The Library of the Area of CNR (Italian National Research Council) in Bologna in the context of the CNR BiblioMIME project. Since then, it has been used by an increasingly growing network of libraries that have stimulated its continuous development and the growth of innovative features.
NILDE software allows the library:
- to manage in an automated way the procedures linked to Document Supply and Inter-Library Loan (DS-ILL)
- to manage the consignment of the documents electronically across a secure web interface with a dedicated server, or by means of fax and ordinary mail
- to offer the users of the library a personalized service of Document Supply
- to have a report that is detailed and always updated with the exchanges carried out between the libraries, with the possibility of measuring and confronting the performances of the various libraries or of the same library through time
- to obtain automatically the quality indicators “fill-rate” and “turnaround time
- to be a part of a network based on the sharing of good practices, of tools and of policies for the continuous enhancement of the services of Document Supply and Inter-Library Loan (DS-ILL)
