What is PASCAL?

What is "PASCAL Delivers"?

What does PASCAL Delivers cost?

What is in the PASCAL Delivers catalog?

When I requested an item, I got the message ‘Sorry, you are not
allowed to request this item over PASCAL.’ What’s wrong?

What libraries are in the PASCAL Delivers catalog?

When will PASCAL Delivers service be available?  

Who can borrow books using PASCAL Delivers?

How quickly can I get my books?

How long can I keep a book I get through PASCAL Delivers?  

How many books can I get? 

Can I use PASCAL Delivers to get articles?

How is PASCAL Delivers different from Interlibrary Loan?

I'm a student. How will this service work for me?

I'm on the faculty or staff. Can I use this service?

What is the Pascal Delivers fee for lost books?

I'm a librarian, and I'd like to understand more about how this works.

What is PASCAL?

The Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL) is consortium of academic libraries in South Carolina. Pascal is a strategic initiative launched by South Carolina's public and private academic libraries in conjunction with their parent institutions: the Commission on Higher Education (CHE), the SC Independent Colleges & Universities (SCICU), the Office of State Chief Information Officer, the State Library, and the Department of Archives and History. Pascal was created to respond to the information-access needs of South Carolinians.  Visit us on the web at:  http://pascalsc.org.

What is "PASCAL Delivers"?

“PASCAL Delivers” is a rapid book delivery service for the patrons of all PASCAL member institutions.   PASCAL Delivers begins with a single, web-based, unified catalog of library holdings.   Library users search the PASCAL Catalog, locate books in any member-library, submit an electronic request for delivery of a book to their home institution, and receive those books within a few days.  Pascal Delivers is part of the State-wide Electronic Academic Library.

What does PASCAL Delivers cost?

The PASCAL Delivers service is free to eligible borrowers at PASCAL libraries. The Pascal Delivers service receives funding through the State-wide Electronic Academic Library.

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What is in the PASCAL Delivers catalog?

The PASCAL Delivers catalog is at http://www.pascalcat.org.  The PASCAL Delivers catalog is a combined, or "union" catalog -- a listing of items owned by Pascal member-libraries. The catalog includes books, journals and periodicals, audiovisual materials, sound recordings, electronic resources, government documents, archives and manuscripts, maps, and music scores.

As of September 2006, Pascalcat included 4,006,352 item records. This number will grow as we continue to add libraries to the catalog.

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When I requested an item, I got the message ‘Sorry, you are not
allowed to request this item over PASCAL.’ What’s wrong?

Check to see if the library has an asterisk by its name on the list of Participating Libraries. Libraries with an asterisk are not yet live for requesting. Unfortunately we cannot suppress these materials and still allow the new library to test lending and borrowing. The list of Participating Libraries can also be found in the top menu bar of Pascalcat.

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What libraries are in the PASCAL Delivers catalog?

We are actively loading libraries into the Pascal catalog. A general timeline of our progress is below. We will update this information periodically, but we welcome your questions. Please do not hesitate to contact us.

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When will PASCAL Delivers service be available?  

Several member-institutions are using Pascal Delivers now.   By the spring of 2007, 17 universities and colleges will be actively using the system, and we will work through the spring and summer of 2007 to bring the remaining 60 institutions into the service.   By the end of 2007, most higher education institutions in South Carolina will be using Pascal Delivers. For more detailed information, see the chart above.

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Who can borrow books using PASCAL Delivers?

Current students, faculty, and staff at PASCAL member-libraries have access to PASCAL Delivers. Through the PASCAL Delivers catalog, books that are not available locally can be requested from other member libraries.   Patrons must be “in good standing” at their home library (no overdue books or fines) in order to use the service.

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How quickly can I get my books?

Our target for delivery is three days. Since this is a new service, we'll be working with participating libraries to try and meet this goal. In some cases it may take a little longer, but not much...

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How long can I keep a book I get through PASCAL Delivers?  

PASCAL Delivers items can be kept by patrons for up to 6 weeks.   We do not allow renewals on PASCAL Delivers items.    

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How many books can I get?

All PASCAL Delivers users are allowed to have 25 requests; a “request” is defined as a book at any stage in the system. Outstanding requests that await a reply from a library are requests; books you have in your possession are requests; books you’ve returned to your library that are still en route to the owning library are requests.    

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Can I use PASCAL Delivers to get articles, videos, or items other than books?

At this time, PASCAL Delivers is only for books.   We hope to be able to expand the service to include article delivery in the future, as the technology matures and funding permits.

The catalog provides links to many electronically accessible materials, based on an individual member-library's access privileges.

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How is PASCAL Delivers different from Interlibrary Loan?

For users, PASCAL Delivers will be faster; for libraries, it will be cheaper. Pascal Delivers is free for users.

PASCAL Delivers is a patron-initiated system; the patron sends a lending request directly to a lending library without involving the patron’s home institution.   The book will be sent to the patron’s home institution, at which point the patron's home library becomes involved with the process. By cutting out the library “middle man,” this system is faster and cheaper for libraries to use.

Traditional interlibrary loan is a mediated service involving complex staff processes, multi-library agreements, and fee structures.  Book deliveries in interlibrary loan frequently take anywhere from two to six weeks, and costs for libraries range anywhere from $20 upward to $50. PASCAL Delivers will place books in users' hands within a couple of days, and processing costs will be considerably less --  perhaps less than $5 per transaction.  (Based on Data from comparable programs and the Association of Research Libraries).

Interlibrary loan will still play an important role in research library services, but PASCAL Delivers will speed and expand access to many materials, thus making our existing collections more useful.

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I'm a student. How will this service work for me?

From your home-library's web site, there will be a link to Pascal's catalog. Your home library may be able put a "pass-through link" inside your home catalog, so that if you don't find what you want at home, your search is replicated in Pascalcat. When you find a book you want, click the "request this item" link, select your home institution from the drop-down list, and enter your library card authorization. Your authentication number is something that you'll need to get from your home library. After you've entered your name and unique ID, you'll receive confirmation that your request was successful. In a couple of days, you will receive an email from your home library saying that the Pascal book you requested is available for pickup. Normally you will receive your request in a few days, depending on the time of day of the request and other workflow factors. When you receive an email that the book is available for pick-up, take your library card with you and you'll check out the book from your home library. When you're finished, you return the book to your home library and they take it from there.

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I'm on the faculty or staff. Can I use this service?

Absolutely! This service is available to anyone who is currently working at a member-institution. If you have questions, you should ask your home library. Pascal Delivers offers the same access for faculty and staff as it does for students.

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What is the Pascal Delivers fee for lost books?

For the first year of this program, we are charging a $75.00 replacement fee for lost books and a $25 handling fee. After the six week lending period has expired, patrons should receive three overdue notices. After the third overdue notice, patrons will be billed $100.00, reflecting the combined handling fee and lost book fee. Libraries are asked to keep records for lost books, for both borrowing and lending, and we will use this data to re-evaluate our policy after the first year of the program.

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I'm a librarian, and I'd like to understand more about how this works.

There are two ways that a patron will "find" Pascalcat. One way is through a link off of a library's web site -- either because the patron found it on their own or because a librarian or a professor directed the student to the site. Another way to "find" Pascalcat is that a search in a local library catalog can offer a "pass-through link" to Pascalcat. This pass-through-link only works if both library catalogs use the same software. For an example of a pass-through link, try a search in Clemson's catalog, and look for the Pascal Delivers logo on the right.

Regardless of how the patron arrives at Pascalcat, a student searches the catalog and, when she finds a book she wants, she clicks the "Request this item" button. She'll be asked which institution she's affiliated with, and she'll have to enter a locally-provided, unique identification number. If she has no overdue fines and if the book is "available" in the catalog, the request will go directly to the lending institution.

Every day, all Pascalcat libraries will download and print their incoming requests; requests that can be "filled" will be pulled from the shelf and sent to the patron's home library. Requests that can't be "filled," because a book is missing from the shelf, for instance, will be "rejected" -- if another copy is available at another Pascal library, the request will bounce to the next institution. If the request is for an item that isn't available anywhere else, the student will get an email referring her to your local interlibrary loan service. Just like Worldcat, library users may not select the "best" item for a request. For instance, a user may request the original edition of The Great Gatsby, which is in Special Collections and is non-circulating, not realizing that a later edition of The Great Gatsby is in the circulating collection, and is indeed available at many Pascal libraries.

Books are sent by overnight courier, so a book that's picked up at one institution on Monday is delivered to the borrowing institution on Tuesday. The patron's home library will "receive" the book and send an email to the patron notifying her that her Pascal book is available for pickup. The patron checks the book out from her home library, and keeps it for six weeks. The book is returned to the patron's home library, and the process is reversed until the book ends up back at the home-library. Patrons typically can request a book and receive it in a few days, depending on the time of day of the request and other workflow factors.

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Comments? email pascalcat@pascalsc.org
Updated 12/07/06