A worthy cooperative effort

reprinted with permission from Laurel K. Graham, librarian for the American Dietetic Association:

FreeForAll is an international collaboration of libraries whose mission is to serve underserved nations for free. Please see instructions for use of service below this note. Contact me off-list if you have any questions or would like to join.

Librarians from developing and less developed nations, please email lendinglibrarians@gmail.com to register for FFA.

Look for a profile of FreeForAll in "Library Journal" - we've been awarded a "Movers and Shakers" award!

Here's my promo:

Your thighs look great, and you deserve a break, so instead of useless resolutions like improving your finances (you're a librarian--it won't, or can't, get much better), battling the bulge, or embracing THAT side of the family:
join FreeForAll. Forty noble libraries already have, be in with the group that sends much needed medical literature around the world in the form of nice, warm .pdfs each day. Put on an apron and serve up .pdfs to some thankful patrons.

A librarian from the Bahamas recently wrote:

Free-for-All has allowed this little nursing library to really shine - we can now do the impossible! Thank you so much.

This is a guide to providing FreeForAll services.
A library need not be a Loansome Doc participant to participate. You will receive FreeForAll requests the way you normally receive Docline requests. The patron will be FreeForAll and their email address will be in email field and/or comments field.

Here's an outline of the procedure for libraries:

1. Join FFA Yahoo Group
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/free-forall/?yguid=190111978
   
   
2. Loansome Doc allows four primary libraries to be chosen as first recipients of Loansome Doc requests. Please consider becoming a Cornerstone FFA library, by being a primary library. Standard members fill FFA ILLs, they do not deal directly with FFA patrons.
   
   
3. If these primary libraries cannot fill request, they will route it to other libraries in FreeForAll.
   
   
4. Problems should be forwarded to me: lgraham@eatright.org
   
   
5. So far misuse has not been a problem, but if you suspect a patron is not from an underserved nation email them and forward their response to me, I can check their IP address for authenticity.
   
   
6. Libraries control workload, reject or accept as many ILLs as desired.
   

Suggestions welcome!