8th Interlending and Document Supply International Conference, Canberra Australia 28-31 October 2003
 



Borrow direct: impact of an innovative reader-initiated borrowing mechanism on service quality

Danuta A. Nitecki and Carol L. Jones

Abstract | Paper in [PDF] Portable Document Format (PDF)
Presentation in Microsoft® PowerPoint® format

Traditionally, interlibrary loan (ILL) services have been valued for providing critical access to research resources, but also have been considered expensive and slow to deliver. The quality of ILL services has been gauged by customer perceptions as well as by technical adherence to specifications for speed of response time, fill rate, and transaction costs. Librarians at three large universities wanted to lessen readers' inconvenience and reduce processing costs associated with gaining access to materials not owned locally. They successfully developed a reader-initiated borrowing model of interlibrary resource sharing, known as Borrow Direct, that now operates among seven major academic libraries in the United States. The underlying software allows the reader to perform a virtual broadcast search of members' online catalogs and then, using item status information from screen displays, directs a loan request to a library that has a high likelihood of the item being on the shelf and available for circulation. Automatic electronic notification to readers and elimination of some staff processing has resulted in major service improvements as assessed by both customers and managers.

The authors will share insights gained from working at Yale University, one of the institutions instrumental in the initial development of Borrow Direct. They will describe the history of the initiative to reach technical goals of delivering loans within four days of request submission and doing so for less than $10 per transaction. They also will summarize results of a survey of the perceptions of faculty, students and staff who use the service.

 

 

 
  National Library of Australia Australian Library and Information Association International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions