UMASS Darthmoth ILL Story a Hoax 2005 December 24
For those in the library-world that have been following the UMASS Dartmoth’s student supposed visit from Homeland Security agents after requesting an inter-library loan (ILL) of a book it was a big hoax. The student admitted to making the whole thing up. As many in the library community reported, the story seemed fishy from the beginning because some details in the story didn’t check out from the beginning. For example the original story claimed the student needed to enter his SSN to make the request while it is clear that UMASS uses an 8 digit number – which can’t be the SSN since it has nine digits; requesting a specific edition of a book without the proper title; and the article saying the book was popular in the 50′s when it wasn’t published until 1964 — just to name a few fishy aspects of the story. (I read these facts on LISNEWS.org and the ALA Council [E-mail] List). I’m not sure why the hoax was pulled, however I’m glad to see that many in the library community was so active in trying to nail the details (and truth) of this story. It is a good thing that we know the truth about this incident instead of speculating whether it is true or not. I’m not sure if it wasn’t for librarians we would have ever found out the truth about this hoax.