Amigos Resource Sharing Agreements

Amigos members are eligible to participate in the Amigos Resource Sharing Agreement. Currently, more than 500 Amigos members participate.

The Amigos Resource Sharing Agreement states that signers of the agreement will provide loans and copies (up to 50 pages) without charging the requesting participant any type of handling, postage or other fees. The agreement is reciprocal in that all signers can expect uniform “no charge” ILL service from other signers within the limits described in the agreement.

Although libraries are encouraged to lend any type of materials normally circulated to their local users, the agreement does not require a library to loan particular items or formats, only to provide those loans at no charge to other signers.

It is easy to determine if a library participates. All signers are added to the "AMGS" ILL group in OCLC. A complete list of signers can be found by searching AMGS in the Group Search in the OCLC Policies Directory. Borrowers can view holdings of AMGS signers when submitting ILL requests in OCLC through the Group Holdings display and can identify their own participation in the agreement by listing AMGS or Amigos Resource Sharing Agreement Signer in the Affiliations field of their ILL Constant Data Record.

The complete text of the agreement can be found here: http://www.amigos.org/node/266.

If you are an Amigos member and would like to sign the agreement, go here: http://www.amigos.org/files/MPD0012rev011706.pdf.

Amigos Western Resource Sharing Agreement
Amigos Library Services (Amigos) offers the Amigos Western Resource Sharing Agreement as an option to our members who are current signers of the Amigos/BCR Reciprocal Interlibrary Loan Agreement.

Libraries will agree to follow the Amigos Resource Sharing Agreement. There are two differences between the Western Resource Sharing Agreement and the Amigos Resource Sharing Agreement. The Western Resource Sharing Agreement states that lenders will provide up to 30 free photocopy pages while the Amigos Resource Sharing Agreement stipulates up to 50 free pages of photocopy.

Also, the Western Resource Sharing Agreement leaves the issue of charging for FAX or other electronic transmission of photocopies at the discretion of the lending library while the Amigos Resource Sharing Agreement provides that the lending library will assume these changes. However, these differences need not discourage any library from signing the Western Resource Sharing Agreement; most photocopy requests will not exceed 7-10 pages, and most libraries now routinely provide electronic delivery at no extra charge.

Libraries will indicate their participation in the agreement by entering “Amigos Western Resource Sharing Agreement: Yes” in the Affiliation field in the interlibrary loan request. Participants’ library symbols will be added to the AMBC group in OCLC.

The complete text of the Western Sharing Agreement can be found here: http://www.amigos.org/sites/default/files/amigos_western_resource_sharing_agree.pdf

Please contact Tim Prather (phone: 800-848-5878 ext. 2892 or e-mail: prather@amigos.org) for more information.