It is one of my joys as an Interlibrary Loan librarian to request obscure manga series for patrons. My library system has an impressive manga collection, but as any librarian knows, we can't collect everything, and we depend on other libraries to pick up the slack and collect unique titles we don't own and they depend on us to do the same. That's the essence of the rationale behind Interlibrary Loan generally.
We Anime & Manga Otaku can be very very enthusiastic about our hobby but I see a lot of patrons making rookie mistakes when it comes to requesting multi-volume sets of manga. They want to request EVERYTHING, all at once, and believe me, as a fan who has pre-ordered multiple volumes of manga at a time via Barnes & Noble to qualify for the free shipping and because I believe in a series so strongly, I get the impulse. But when it comes to Interlibrary Loan, you need to dial it back a notch.
The best practice for requesting multiple volumes of manga is to do it ONE VOLUME AT A TIME.
Request it, read it, enjoy it, return it, and request the next one. I often will read a new manga that I've received via ILL in a single night and return it the very next day and fire off the next request for the next volume.
This is the best way to do it. Why? Well, because what happens when you request a multi-volume set is that the loan requests get placed in random, automated lender strings nearly simultaneously, but not every library at the top of the lender string is able to supply the requested volume for whatever reason, but they have a few days to respond before the system shifts to the next potential lender and so on. So what will frequently happen is Volume 5 will be supplied and shipped immediately, while Volume 1 and 3 could sit in the lender string for quite some time. Then volume 2 ships and arrives at the same time as volume 4 supplied the next day from a geographically closer library. If you've been wanting to avoid spoilers and read the volumes in sequence and just been siting on Vols. 5,4, and 2 while waiting on Vols. 1 & 3 to arrive, you're slowly burning through the loan periods such that by the time volume 1 arrives, you have to binge like crazy to read up through volume 5....you may run out of time and have to return volume 5 unread and request it again. You create needless stress & headaches for yourself because of a lack of understanding how the system works behind the curtain. Not your fault, but I'm here as an ILL librarian to let you in on that "secret".
If you can find the ISBN of an Omnibus edition that's also a really good way to get the most bang for your ILL buck. Be sure to specify in the "note" field of your request that you specifically want the Omnibus edition. Not all manga get issued in this format, but a lot of the longer running "classic" series have been reissued in this more portable format. If you can get a 3-in-1 Omnibus, that's only 1 active request in your "active" queue instead of 3. Our library limits the number of "active" requests to 10 at a time, and many other libraries have similar restrictions.
Other libraries handle manga differently, but I always make sure to attach our ILL bookstrap to the front of the book as it is read in the Japanese way, Right to Left, e.g. reversed from a Western comic book. I do not provide an ILL bookstrap on manga we loan out from our own collection. Other libraries do and I appreciate it, but I always overlay our "native" bookstrap on top of theirs, with our locally assigned temporary barcodes, etc.
Also, and this is for other ILL librarians, it's good practice to include in the original request, on the title line, the actual book or volume number in brackets, like {v.1} or {bk.2}, even though you should still fill this out (again) in the appropriate field on the request form, too. Our ILS prints automated bookstraps and these little tweaks help. If I forget or the title is too long, I will hand write "v.1" or "bk.2" on the strap next to the title for clarification.
These are just a few thoughts and tips I have regarding requesting Manga via Interlibrary Loan.
I hope you found them useful, for patron & fellow librarians alike.
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