Before the morn was gone I delved deep into the world of languages other than English(LOTE). The library service hold within its collection many items in many languages. These are held at different locations. Here, for example, there is a collection of German and Chinese language materials. Customers may place holds on these items, like any other items.
With LOTE items, however, it is possible to simply request a number of items in a particular language, say 10 novels on Spanish. Since the libraries do not hold items in all languages, or not a lot in some, these can be borrowed from the state library collection (PLS? I think) held off-site and serving the needs of libraries around Queensland. The tricky part is that these items are given a special barcode when they arrive that must be matched with the correct catalogue record. This is not easily done when the script is incompressible . All good fun.
Now, before the sun did wane in the west, I was heralded unto the land of reference guidelines. Essentially, this boiled down to the simple fact that people lie, but they don't know they're lying. Put otherwise, it is our job to help the user identify more specifically what information they really want before we advise them on where they can find it. This is called the reference interview. Once this has been established we can search the catalogue or the databases to locate what is needed. It may be that what is wanted is an item held by another library service and an inter library loan can be arranged for the same price as placing a hold (unless it is at a state or national library - $16.50 apparently).
That about wraps it up for today.
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