ARL White Paper on Interlibrary Loan

ARL White Paper on Interlibrary Loan Anne K. Beaubien Director, Cooperative Access Services University of Michigan Library Definition of Interlibrary Loan: Interlibrary (ILL) loan services supplement libraries’ collections by obtaining materials needed for research, scholarship and private study that are not available at a user’s home institution. Research and academic libraries place ILL requests on behalf of faculty, staff, and students for returnable items (e.g., books, audiovisual items, microfilms) and non-returnable items (e.g., copies of journal articles, conference papers) usually to obtain material out of scope for the collection or to support a specialized research interest of one of their users. Many research and academic libraries send reports of items requested on interlibrary loan to their selectors/bibliographers so they can review these requests for possible purchase and addition to the collection. Generally, the journals and books libraries request on ILL are ones they would not purchase because they are out of scope. These policies are carefully considered and reviewed to ensure that they reflect the research interests of the institution. Research and academic libraries provide ILL services only to their own clearly defined user community. Since ILL services are costly to operate, libraries attempt to control the volume of lending requests that they handle. Research and academic libraries set up reciprocal arrangements with very specific and limited numbers of partner libraries. Fees are charged to libraries not in those consortial arrangements to set up a barrier for non-reciprocal sites and discourage use of interlibrary loan. The majority of ILL work is reciprocal; charges are made for only a small percentage of requests. That small amount of revenue generated provides only a fraction of the operating expenses of ILL activity. Statistics/Trends: ILL activity is up in the United States but the majority of the increase is for returnables. The ARL statistics show that member libraries are borrowing more items today than they did 19 years ago. However, the ARL statistics do not distinguish between returnable and non-returnable requests. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), located within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences, is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education. NCES collects data biennially from about 3,700 degree-granting postsecondary institutions that provides an overview of academic libraries nationwide and by state. These statistics for academic libraries show ILL requests for returnables went up 26% between 1998 and 2004 while requests for non-returnables went down 4% during the same period. In the Oberlin Group of Libraries (college libraries), requests for returnables went up 100% between 1994/1995 and 2004/2005 while non-returnable requests went down 18%. The licensing of electronic journals (e-journals) and the availability of extensive backfiles of e-journals has had a huge impact on interlibrary loan operations. Research and academic libraries purchase licenses for needed journals so the number of ILL requests for non-returnables has gone down. Reasons for Increases in ILL transactions: ILL transactions have increased due to several factors. There has been an increase in discovery tools, such as indices, searching the Web, and Google Books that has augmented people’s awareness of publications. This knowledge has increased ILL requests and has also created an increased demand for both in-print and out-of-print books. In addition, research and academic libraries have tried to make ILL more effective for users by making the process simpler, improving delivery options, and thus decreasing the turn-around time for requests. One such practice is the introduction of “unmediated” ILL. There is confusion in the term “unmediated” which is defined in the ARL study (Accessing ILL/DD Services: New Cost-effective Alternatives by Mary Jackson) as user initiated. User initiated requests are primarily used for returnables and have little impact on Section 108 issues. Many consortial borrowing programs have implemented user initiated borrowing and ILL requests have increased. These requests are still library controlled and must match certain profiles before they can be sent to a potential supplier. User initiated requests are prescreened to be sure that users are part of the community served and the items requested fit specific parameters. Library staff set up programming in computer systems that route user requests based on