Call Me Elijah: Microcomputer Circulation at Southern Illinois Available to Purchase

In July of 1989, the Circulation Department of Lovejoy Library at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville began to employ a microcomputer‐based circulation system for tracking various library materials not held or chargeable in our main LCS (ILLINET Online) database. Called Elijah after Elijah P. Lovejoy, the library's namesake, this menu‐driven system was developed over the course of the previous year by the Library Systems Coordinator, John Drueke, and was written in an earlier version of the R:Base software. For handling the occasional circulations of those various uncataloged materials held by almost every library (e.g., loose periodicals, ephemeral documents, and leased browsing‐collection materials), this auxiliary system has provided a practical alternative to the usual paper‐file recording of loans when the principal automated circulation system, in this case a shared, statewide system, allows no such machine option in the absence of an existing database record for the item.