Staff Papers

Resource Sharing in Australia: evaluation of national initiatives and recent developments

Roxanne Missingham , Margarita Moreno.

The authors

Roxanne Missingham is Assistant Director-General, Resource Sharing and Margarita Moreno is Manager, Document Supply Service at the National Library of Australia

Keywords

National Library of Australia, Document supply, Interlending, Trends

Abstract

Australian libraries share their resources to assist all library users in obtaining information for a wide range of research, education and information purposes. Developments over the past decade have focused on fostering and improving resource sharing nationally through consultative mechanisms. This paper summarises the changing pattern of Australian interlibrary loans and document delivery, the achievements of the consultative mechanisms (National Resource Sharing Working Group and National Research Sharing Policy Committees) and issues identified for further action.

Introduction

Australian libraries have a long history of commitment to sharing resource. Library collections across the nation have evolved over the past two centuries into rich resources designed to meet the priorities of individual libraries. Because most libraries develop a collection that contains only a proportion of the material their users are seeking, libraries have cooperated to enable their collections to be shared across Australia through a national resource sharing framework.

Interlibrary loan and document delivery (ILL/DD), the key to resource sharing, has seen significant change in past years. Horton noted (Horton, 1984) that:

“The present interlibrary loan system grew from co-operative arrangements made between libraries, which were intended to make available unusual material which could not otherwise be obtained…AACOBS [1] intervened when it formulated its Interlibrary Loan Code which set up guidelines to regulate inter library loans…”

The importance of access to resources of other libraries grew through the 1970s and 1980s. Schmidt identified a key driver to greater collaboration in her paper to the National Interlending and Document Delivery Summit in 1995 (Schmidt, 1996):

“The concept of self-sufficiency has long been abandoned by University libraries.”

Interlending has changed significantly over the past 30 years, and the Australian library community has identified areas of research and practice for development. From the Australian Institute of Librarians Code for Interlending in 1946 to the AACOBS Code in 1966 and the Australian ILRS Code in 2001 there has been a significant improvement in consistency in areas such as charges, turnaround times and agreed standards. These have improved the strength of the interlending framework between libraries.

The National Library has contributed significantly to the development of interlibrary lending and document delivery policy. Over the past six years this role has been facilitated through the National Resource Sharing Working Group (NRSWG) and National Resource Sharing Policy Committee (NRSPC). These groups were established by the National Library to support the development of a national resource sharing infrastructure following a series of national meetings and discussions. The Towards Federation Summit in 1992 and National Interlending and Document Delivery Summit of 1995 established discussion between all library sectors on the potential development of the interlibrary loan and document delivery system. The NRSWG was created in 1999 and the NRSPC in 2000 with a clear agenda to improve the Australian ILL/DD system.

The National Library’s Directions statement identifies that

Our major undertaking in 2003–2005 will be to provide rapid and easy access to the wealth of information resources that reside in libraries and other cultural institutions and to break down barriers that work against this. Services supporting access to library information will be simplified and made more user-friendly, and will be widely promoted.

After five years it is timely to review the achievements of a national consultative approach to resource sharing. During the period there have been profound changes in collections with a significant increase in electronic resources available at the desktop. There has been a small increase in automation of interlibrary loan and document delivery units and a significant step in implementation of ISO ILL in the national ILL/DD system, Kinetica Document Delivery (KDD) [2]. This enables libraries to use their own systems for automating their workflows and extend this to end users. This paper reviews issues in Australian interlibrary loan and document delivery and the achievement of the national coordinated approach in recent years.

Trends in Australian resource sharing

To understand the achievements in Australia it is necessary to consider the context of the ILL/DD environment. Australian libraries have a long history of sharing of access to their collections. There are approximately 75 million volumes held across the country [3] and from these 193 million loans [4] are made annually. While expenditure on collections has grown, with the total Australian expenditure on libraries currently around A$1,294 m [5] annually, the pace of increases in library material prices has generally outstripped increases in the purchasing power of libraries.[6]

While limited information is available through statistical reports available over the past 30 years the current trend is one of slowly declining traffic in interlibrary loans and document delivery. Factors identified are: the emergence of ejournals and access from the desktop; automation of local systems; the consolidation and growth of non-library suppliers; end user access and developments in national infrastructure services such as the Australian National Bibliographic Database (available through the Kinetica service) and the national automated resource sharing system, KDD.

Australian Interlibrary loan and document delivery traffic

In 1964 it was estimated that about 150,000 interlibrary loan transactions occurred each year. A study in 1986 (Exon, 1987) found that this had risen to between 800,000 and one million transactions. This rise peaked in the early 1990s and the trend has been downward ever since. Today there are about 800,000 transactions per annum in Australia.

Figures from Australian library sectors attest to this changing pattern in a number of sectors.

Health Libraries: There are 260 health libraries in a national serials resource sharing network, Gratisnet. Table I covers the Victorian libraries which represents just under 30% of members and shows a decline in recent years.

Table I: Supply of copies from serials to Victorian health libraries through Gratisnet: 2001-2003

Public Libraries:Public libraries on the other hand demonstrate more complex changes. Some states are increasing their interlibrary loan and document delivery activities while others show a decline. The statistics shown in Table II do not show all activity for all public libraries but give a flavour of the change in this sector. In some case the activities do not include state library supported borrowing.

Table II: Interlibrary lending: Australian public libraries by states 1996-2002

National interlibrary loan and document delivery system (KDD) total number of Interlibrary Loans: Table III shows activity on the Kinetica Document Delivery system which enables libraries to request, supply and pay each other (KDD).

Table III: Interlibrary lending traffic through the national automated system, Kinetica Document Delivery: 1999/2000 – 2003/04

University Library statistics: In the university sector the trend for both supplying to others and receiving from others has generally declined, however it has increased slightly in the past two years [7] as shown in Table IV.

Table IV: Supply and requests by Australian university libraries: 1990-2002

The National Library of Australia statistics also reveal a decline in request for material from its own collections as shown in Table V.

Table IV: Interlibrary loans and copies requested by libraries and supplied from the National Library of Australia: 1980/81 – 2003/04

Resource sharing issues

One of the major benefits of the automation of systems and supply of material has been an improvement in turnaround time. In 1986 the turnaround time was 50% of material within 0-19 days, the remainder taking longer. In 2000 the Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery (ILL/DD) Benchmarking Study [8] found that the turnaround time was 11.5 days, a significant improvement.

Interestingly the mix of supply has changed little – in 1986 62.2% of material supplied was photocopies mostly of journal articles. In 2000 53.7% of all material supplied were copies. The widespread availability of journal articles through electronic collections may affect this balance in the near future.

Across Australian library sectors there are different patterns of requesting and supplying. The 1986 and 2000 studies found that the highest net requesters were universities and special libraries, with the highest net suppliers being national and state libraries, followed by university libraries.

The trend of reducing ILL/DD is replicated in New Zealand; however other countries have experienced different trends. In France interlibrary loan and document delivery for the university libraries ( Boukacem 2003) has grown overall although a decline consistent with Australian trends is being experienced from the mid 1990s. The steadying of supply through the early 2000s has also been found in UK university libraries ( Bradford 2003).

These trends indicate that ILL/DD is in a process of change. Factors influencing this trend in Australia are analysed below.

Ejournals/Eprints and access from the desktop

The formation of consortia to purchase electronic journals sets has resulted in a significant increase in electronic journals available to Australian users, particularly through the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) and Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL) consortia. The dramatic increase in availability of current journals has enabled more immediate access to these journals for users. Generally requests for the sciences has predominantly been for journal articles. It is likely that the information needs of these users in particular, which would previously have been filled through document delivery are now met by access via the desktop to electronic journals.

The increasing availability of preprints and conference papers through the web is also likely to have an impact on ILL/DD. For humanities and social sciences researchers there appears to be a continued demand for monographs; however electronic journals and free publishing on the web of scholarly resources is likely to have an increasing impact in this area as well.

The development of Open Access or Open Archives has also emerged as a major trend in recent years. These services provide repositories for preprints and postprints of research material, providing them free of charge to all users through the web. In Australian the ARROW project (Australian Research Repositories Online to the World http://arrow.edu.au/), which received funding in the latest round of grants from the Department of Education, Science and Training, will result in institutional digital repositories comprising e-prints, digital theses and electronic publishing. The emergence of these repositories may also effect demand for interlibrary loans and document delivery.

Technology

Technology continues to play an ever increasing role in interlending and document delivery. While libraries have taken advantage of technology in many areas they are only just beginning to take advantage of recent developments in order to further automate ILL processes. Most visibly users are now more likely to be able to request an interlibrary loan or copy from their desktop, reducing the barriers to requesting. The National Library’s Copies Direct service, accessible through the catalogue, has experienced an increase in usage since its launch in 2002 and a larger increase since its incorporation within the catalogue, eliminating the need to rekey bibliographic data.

Reproduction and delivery

The level of uptake of technology is mixed, most libraries have access to photocopiers, email and faxes but relatively few have access to Ariel for document delivery. Initially only large organisations, mostly the university and state/national libraries invested in the Ariel software. And although this group has expanded there are less than 100 libraries using Ariel for document delivery. This issue is less of concern now with many libraries accepting email delivery. The impact of this development has been a reduction in turnaround time for end users of several days.

Automation

The Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery (ILL/DD) Benchmarking Study reported that “automation was a decisive factor in every performance criterion, literally saving days in turnaround time and reducing unit costs. Automating any part of the ILL/DD operations was influential in increasing efficiency and effectiveness, from having the patron create the request to delivering electronic copies to their desktop” (National Resource Sharing Working Group 2001).

Since the late1980s libraries have been investigating opportunities to automate their interlibrary loan and document delivery operations. The National Library introduced a national automated ILL system in 1989 as part of the services available from the Australian Bibliographic Network (later Kinetica Document Delivery) and changed the way libraries managed their ILL activities. The service not only allows users to create, monitor and respond to interlibrary loan requests, but since 1993 it also allows them to pay for their requests.

In 2003 Kinetica implemented ISO ILL protocol compliant software enabling ILL management systems to exchange messages with KDD. This gives libraries the flexibility to manage all their interlibrary loans and document delivery requests within their own system. Australian libraries have been able to move from a centralised model through Kinetica Document Delivery (KDD) to a more distributed model where libraries create requests on their own system and exchange them with other ISO ILL compliant systems including the networks. Many of the larger libraries and library consortia, such as the Western Australian Group of University Libraries (WAGUL), are adopting the ISO ILL solution.

Other smaller networks have also emerged to help libraries manage their interlibrary loans on a regional or sector basis. As an example GRATISNET was developed to assist health libraries manage their interlibrary loans requests for serials. Interlibrary loan traffic is monitored to ensure requests are balanced and all members share the lending load and responsibility for maintaining their locations information.

Smaller libraries appear to have a slower take up of automation. Factors influencing this are most likely to be the cost of automation, the skills required by staff to set up and use automated ILL systems and technical support issues.

Cooperative networks

Australian libraries have a strong history of co-operating. As mentioned earlier Kinetica was established to assist libraries in sharing catalogue and locations data. The service is chargeable and it relies on the contribution of members for the data..

There are other cooperative networks within specific groups, such as health librarians with GRATISNET, law library state based arrangements and agreements between state and public libraries. A number of university and research libraries have regional networks such as WAGUL which have both extended the availability of resources for end users and enabled joint automation for more efficient practices.

Over the last five years there has not been significant changes to these networks. What is notable, however, is the implementation of joint catalogues and automation of ILL/DD. Very few of these projects have resulted in direct unmediated requesting by end users yet.

InformationAustralia (Missingham, 2004), the public library portal, is an example of a “Borrow Direct” style service. This pilot project enables patrons from five public libraries to find and request, at no charge, resources from each other and the National Library. Evaluation of this service and the information needs of public library users is currently underway.

End user access

The Australian Libraries Collections Task Force has investigated issues faced by end users in accessing the resources of Australian libraries. A study on access to monographs by (Cantrell, 1999) found:

“Inter-library loans are of importance in relation to approximately 50% of the research being conducted in English and Psychology in Australian universities. 50.4% of English researchers reported that they used inter-library loans at least 6 times each year. The figure for Psychology researchers was 46.8%. Inter-library loan usage among English researchers was determined largely by their nominated primary area of research. Those English researchers working in smaller or newer fields made greater use of such loans than did their colleagues in the more common areas of research, regardless of institutional affiliation.

26.2% of English researchers reported they had no problems with current inter-library loan service. 17.8% of Psychology researchers also had no problems. The three most commonly reported problems were: cost (18.1% & 17.8%), speed (10.1% & 19.7%) and the need to find better means of electronic access to monographs and information about them (8% & 14.2%).

All the above suggests that while there may be no "crisis" in access to monographs in English or Psychology there are very real problems, especially in the smaller and newer sub-disciplines and in the smaller and newer universities... The further and disturbing fact that approximately 50% of researchers in both disciplines (43.4% in English and 54.2% in Psychology) regard their own university library as inadequate for any research work more advanced than undergraduate tells us a great deal about the current maldistribution of research resources and opportunities in our universities.”

A later study on access to scientific journals (Fletcher, 2001) found:

“Slowness of the interlibrary loans system was mentioned by many of the respondents, but cost is not nearly so much of an issue as it was in the Looking for Books survey of monograph users in Psychology and English. The Focus groups revealed that it was an issue for users at Charles Sturt University , who do not have the on-campus or nearby library resources which metropolitan university library users can take advantage of. Speed of delivery was particularly an issue for those requiring articles to assist in refereeing and review processes, or at critical periods in the research process.”

Focus groups held in a number of Australian universities (http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/alctf/meeting7/focus.html) found wide variations in the use of resources and awareness of interlibrary loan. Significant concerns were expressed about the affordability of interlibrary loans, the speed of the service and technical issues such as the size of files and bandwidth.

From the perspective of academics and students in the tertiary sector there appear to be significant barriers to obtaining access to resources in other collections through interlibrary lending.

Copyright and licence issues

Librarians and users have raised concerns about the limitations on access to electronic resources through licence conditions imposed on purchasing libraries. The most frequently reported issues are limitations preventing “walk in” use by users who are not members of an organisation and restrictions that prevent documents being made available through document delivery. While the Copyright Law Review Committee reviewed the issue of copyright versus contracts (Copyright Law Review Committee , 2002), and the Digital Agenda Act (DAA) clearly allows resource sharing of electronic materials under certain circumstances, the implications under the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is not yet clear but is unlikely to change the current legal situation..

The awareness and policies of libraries in signing contracts for electronic resources also appears to be very fragmented and inconsistent, without clear national guidelines or principles. This is highlighted by asurvey undertaken for the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee which found that very few university libraries made electronic journals or ebooks available on interlibrary loan.

National infrastructure

The collections distributed among Australian libraries contain resources which are critical to users across Australia. The physical and electronic collections form a part of a national information infrastructure which has traditionally been available through national and other cooperative agreements. Future directions need to build on this cooperative spirit.

The infrastructure which supports the sharing of resources includes the Australian National Bibliographic Database (NBD) through Kinetica, KDD and local systems. It is essential that resource discovery and supply systems continue to be developed and that libraries continue to report their collections to the NBD.

The Senate Environment, Communications Information Technology and the Arts inquiry into the role of libraries in the digital environment recommended library cooperation be extended through:

“The committee recommends that the National Library of Australia receive additional funding to provide improved access to Kinetica for all Australian libraries and end users.

The Committee recommends:

  • that the National Library of Australia identify a number of key databases for which national site licencing might be desirable; and
  • that additional Australian government funding be extended to the National Library of Australia for this purpose.”

While the government response has not identified financial support for these recommendations, at least the need for better access to resources and resource sharing has been raised publicly.The redevelopment of Kinetica, a major project being undertaken in 2004 and 2005, is designed to introduce a better service not just for libraries but principally for end users; however the financial model for the service remains to be determined.

National Resource Sharing Working Group

The National Resource Sharing Working Group (NRSWG) was established in 1999 based on a proposal to ensure that a robust, reliable and cost-effective interlibrary loan and document delivery system, built on cooperation and agreed service standards and policies, is in place to serve Australian libraries and their users.

The group was an initiative of the National Library in response to concerns expressed by users and librarians about the effectiveness of the current interlending system. In setting up the group, the Library received strong support from industry bodies including the Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL), the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and the Australian Library Collections Task Force.

Terms of Reference

The NRSWG has an ongoing role to monitor interlibrary lending standards, practices and policies and to ensure that these continued to meet changing user needs and new technologies. Specific aims are to:

  1. Extend the current Australian Interlending Code through development of performance standards aimed at improving the efficiency, reliability and client satisfaction of Inter Library Loans (ILL) operations in Australian libraries.
  2. Co-ordinate a consultative process with the Australian library community (interlibrary lending practitioners & library managers) and user groups to reach consensus on these standards.
  3. Develop strategies to encourage Australian libraries to implement performance standards. These strategies will include areas such as training & competencies for interlibrary lending staff.
  4. Conduct a wide-ranging survey of Australian libraries to ascertain document delivery trends and current interlibrary lending practices in Australia.
  5. Ensure that Australian requirements are reflected in the developments of the ISO interlibrary lending Protocol (the international standard for interlibrary lending communication) by monitoring and providing input through IT 19 to the ILL Protocol Implementors Group (IPIG) (http://www.arl.org/access/naildd/ipig/ipig.shtml) convened by the Association of Research Libraries.
  6. Cooperate with international efforts to improve interlibrary lending between countries and recommend improved processes for international interlibrary lending of monographs not held in Australian libraries.
  7. Identify and recommend mechanisms which improve access to interlibrary lending services by end users.
  8. Develop a standard survey/evaluation instrument to measure client satisfaction with interlending services and promote its use by Australian libraries.
  9. Develop criteria for defining best practices for interlibrary lending operations and identify best practice interlibrary lending operations for libraries for benchmarking.

Four priority areas were identified in their terms of reference:

    • Performance standards drafted - drafting of performance standards aimed at improving the efficiency, reliability and client satisfaction of interlibrary loan operations in Australian libraries
    • Survey of document delivery practices and trends - developing and conducting a wide-ranging survey of current practices and trends in interlibrary lending
    • Plan for consultation developed - consultation with the Australian library community (interlibrary lending practitioners and library managers) and user groups to reach consensus on the standards and promote wide-ranging support for the work and outcomes of the working group
    • International interlending issues investigated - this is intended to ensure both Australian input to international standards developments, for example to ILL Protocol Implementers Group (IPIG), and improved processes for international interlibrary lending to benefit Australian users

The achievements of the Group in relation to these objectives are set out below.

Performance standards: establishing a national agreed standard

Perhaps the most significant development overseen by the Group has been the finalisation and review of a new national code – the Australian ILRS Code. The Australian ILRS Code was developed by the Group to replace the Australian Interlending Code (developed by ACLIS) as the standard for resource sharing in Australia. The NRSWG developed the new Code in consultation with the ILL/DD library community.

Importantly the Code defines service delivery and charges in a simple cohesive manner. The Code has been endorsed by the ALIA, the CASL, CAUL and the National Library of Australia. It has been adopted by the majority of Australian libraries and significantly clarifies interlibrary lending service levels between libraries. Prior to the Code there had been widely varying practices in terms of turn around time and charges, which has been overcome to a high degree through the consultative process used to develop and implement the Code.

The National Resource Sharing Working Group has also approved a series of codes to represent Australian Document Delivery Service Levels in ILL Protocol compliant requests.

Survey of practices and program to improve practices

Recognising that the practices and policies of Australian libraries for interlibrary loan and document delivery had not been reviewed for over a decade, and taking advantage of an international methodology developed by the American Research Libraries group, one of the major tasks of the NRSWG was an Inter library lending/document delivery Benchmarking Study.

The Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery (ILL/DD) Benchmarking Study was undertaken by the National Resource Sharing Working Group with the assistance of the National Library of Australia. It is the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of ILL/DD operations in Australian libraries. The results are of relevance to all library sectors. The report was presented to both the Australian and international library communities.

The study (Ruthven, 2002) found that a number of factors maximised performance and recommended that libraries:

Examine workflows to ensure there are as few steps as possible.;

Implement an automation package;

Ensure ILL/DD staff are well-trained in resources and systems;

Add and maintain holdings on union catalogues;

Investigate cooperative agreements with key libraries.

A critical step in turning the recommendations into practice has been the delivery of training courses around Australia by the Group on the outcomes of the study and also incorporating workshops session to review ILL/DD practices. The workbook developed for the course has been made publicly available through the web. Approximately 250 Australian library staff have completed the training package.

Consultation

The key role of consulting with Australian library sectors – ALIA, university libraries and state libraries - was taken up by the National Resource Sharing Policy Committee.

International models and practices

In addition to establishing best ILL/DD practices and encouraging libraries to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these service the NRSWG held a number of major events aimed at enabling libraries to consider new models and practices in all areas of resource sharing. The major events held were:

Improving Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Services: Mary E. Jackson presented a seminar at the National Library of Australia in Canberra on 22 October 1999. Mary's presentation summarised the key findings of the ARL Study, particularly best practices in ILL/DD and the characteristics of high-performing organisations. Issues such as performance standards, charging and use of technology were discussed, as well as the work of the ILL Protocol Implementors Group (IPIG).

National Resource Sharing Forum and Field Day held on the 11 - 12 November 2002 at the National Library of Australia. Library managers and interlibrary loan and document delivery practitioners were invited to convene at the Resource Sharing Forum to discuss new models for resource sharing and ideas for improving library service and processes. Papers for the event are on the web. (http://www.nla.gov.au/rsforum/index.html)

IFLA ILDS - 8th Interlending and Document Supply International Conference Papers from the conference held on 28-31 October 2003, Canberra, Australia are available on the conference web site (http://www.nla.gov.au/ilds/). This conference enabled Australian library staff to engage with developments in libraries from many other countries and consider new models, such as “Borrow Direct” in the US..

In addition to conferences and forums the NRSWG published a Guide to Best Practice to Interlibrary Resource Sharing in Australia. This provides guidance on what libraries should do to facilitate an efficient and effective resource sharing system. The Guide includes recommendations for best practice for requesting and supplying activities.

Other issues

The introduction of a Goods and Services Tax (GST) was a complex issue for Interlibrary loans and document delivery staff in Australian libraries. The NRSWG prepared a document “Interlending Services and the GST”. The statement aimed to set out matters which libraries should consider in order to meet the requirements of the GST as it applies to ILL/DD services.

The NRWSG also fostered communication between a wider range of library groups which has assisted in developing awareness that there are many issues which are relevant or of higher priority to particular groups.

Issues which were not addressed in depth by the group include:

  • Changing needs of end user;
  • Updating of the Ausloan manual;
  • Development of new networks for reciprocal ILL/DD;
  • Barriers to ILL/DD through limited participation by smaller libraries in networks such as KDD and the NBD; and
  • Measuring the degree of improvement in ILL/DD from the promulgation of the results of the survey and training.

National Resource Sharing Policy Committee

The National Resource Sharing Policy Committee (NRSPC) was set up to address broad policy issues impacting on inter-library loan and document delivery in Australia and to provide support, guidance and direction for the activities of the National Resource Sharing Working Group.

The Policy Committee includes members from the National Library of Australia, the Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL), the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), and the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA).

Terms of Reference

The National Resource Sharing Policy Committee was tasked to:

  1. address broad policy issues impacting on inter library loan and document delivery in Australia;
  2. communicate advice to and seek input from major library sector and library profession stakeholder groups such as CAUL, CASL, ALIA and the NLA on inter library loan and document delivery policy issues; and
  3. provide support, guidance and direction for the activities of the National Resource Sharing Working Group.

Initiatives and activities of the group

The most significant activity of the group was ensuring effective liaison and consultation with ALIA, CASL and CAUL. These three groups were critical to obtaining national endorsement and adoption of the Australian ILRS Code, significantly improving the Australian ILL/DD system.

The NRSPC was also involved in planning the IFLA ILDS - 8th Interlending and Document Supply International Conference and NRSWG/NRSPC Forum and Field Day (11-12 November 2002).

Issues for the Future

The Australian Interlending system has seen considerable change during the period of national coordination overseen by the NRSWG and NRSPC. Having focused on improvements in library practices and policies and a national code to underpin common services and standards, it was timely to review the ILL/DD system again. The groups completed their terms with a final meeting on 31 July 2004.

A review of ILL/DD was conducted at the final meeting. It highlighted a number of areas for future action:

  • Participation. Resource sharing is a critical issue for all library sectors. Public and Technical And Further Education (TAFE) libraries were represented at the final meeting and it is clear that public libraries are sharing resources beyond their local networks and are looking forward to participating in discussions on this subject.. National developments will need to involve all sectors.
  • ILRS Code: Recognising that expectations of users and libraries have changed significantly, the group took into account feedback through the National Library’s Document Supply survey and from various librarians that a five level code was too complex and that the five day core turnaround time is too slow. This issue was referred to ALIA for review and will clearly need discussion across library sector bodies to ensure that changes can be implemented and enable libraries to continue to operate efficiently.
  • Skills and manuals/documentation: A need was identified for an up to date information package for library staff on interlending and document supply. The most recent edition of the Australian interlibrary loan and document delivery manual, Ausloan, was published over a decade ago. For the national system to operate effectively an updated manual would enable clear information on the code, copyright, and general ILL/DD issues to be available in one place. Work on a manual was referred to the ALIA Interlending Group. Skills training/CPD was also discussed and it was agreed that the development of relevant courses should also be referred to ALIA.
  • National performance indicators and benchmarking: The Interlending benchmarking study has provided a great basis for understanding how libraries can be efficient. While the measurement of the improvements in Australian interlibrary lending from implementation of the findings of the study has not been undertaken, the group consider that a manageable way forward would be for a sector to development performance indicators and trial these. CAUL’s performance indicator tool includes interlibrary lending; however it was thought that this was inadequate and that CAUL should develop a better set of indicators and measures. This information could be shared with other sectors for implementation across a wider range of libraries through a future meeting.
  • New models: A number of “Borrow direct” type initiatives are being developed in Australia and it was considered important that information on new models and their effects should be explored, but within the existing Australian conference and research reporting framework. Further research should be sought on factors affecting demand by end users and administration of ILL.
  • Trends: While statistics compiled suggest document delivery remains in decline, monograph interlending has generally not declined to the same degree. Monitoring of the impact of direct end user access through services such as Copies Direct is important for the consideration of new services by libraries in all sectors. Unmediated ILL/DD where end user send requests for loans and copies directly to other librariesis likely to be an essential future direction to ensure user satisfaction and consortia are also essential for access to printed as well as electronic collections.

In summary the major themes identified for future action are the need for increased resource discovery (through the NBD), acquisition of collections (particularly with library closures), capability building (training and manuals), information on performance and an urgent need to review the ILRS Code to improve speed of delivery and intelligibility of service levels.

From the user perspective, the ILL/DD system in the early twenty first century is complex and fragmented. The challenge for the Australian library sector is to build upon the good infrastructure and systems developed through the NRSWG and NRSPC over the past six years and to develop new models which provide easy transparent modes of access to library collections across the nation.


 

Bibliography

Australian Research Libraries Collection Analysis Project (ARLCAP) (2004) Report, University of Western Australia, Perth, http://www.library.uwa.edu.au/research/arlcap/

Boukacem, C. (2003) “Inter-library loan services and access to electronic resources in French university libraries: a marriage of reason”, Interlending & Document Supply vol 31 no 4: p 218 – 227

Bradford, Jean (2003) "Not quite the end of the world as we knew it - reflections on change”, Interlending & Document Supply vol 31 no 4: p 237-245

Cantrell, L. (1999) Looking for Books: A Report on Access to Research Monographs by Academics and Higher Degree Students at Australian University Libraries, National Library of Australia, Canberra, http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/alctf/cantrell.html

Copyright Law Review Committee (2002) Copyright and contract, The Committee, Canberra, http://www.law.gov.au/www/clrHome.nsf/AllDocs/
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Fletcher, N. (2001) Access to Scientific Journals in Australian Libraries, National Library of Australia, Canberra, http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/alctf/fletcher.html

Horton, A. (1984) AACOBS policy on charging for interlibrary loans, AACOBS newsletter vol 4 no 3: p 2-5

Exon, F. C. A. (1987) Survey of Australian inter-library lending, The Library, Curtin University of Technology, Perth

Moloney, K., Missingham, R., MacKenzie, C. (2004) “A portal for the people: National Library & your local public library = new access paradigm”, paper presented at the VALA Conference held in Melbourne 2 - 6 February 2004, http://www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/2004/missingham1.html

National Resource Sharing Working Group (2002) Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery (ILL/DD) Benchmarking Study, Library of Australia, Canberra, http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/nrswg/illdd_rpt_sum.html

Ruthven,T. ,Magnay, S. (2002) “Top performing interlending operations: results of the Australian benchmarking study”, Interlending & Document Supply, Volume 30, Number 2, p 73 - 79

Schmidt, J. (1996) “Document Delivery: Ownership or Access? A Response from University Libraries) ”, paper presented to National Interlending and Document Delivery Summit, (1995 : Canberra, A.C.T.), National Interlending and Document Delivery Summit 1995: proceedings of: ACLIS, Canberra, p 70-71.

Footnotes

1. Australian Advisory Council on Bibliographical Services

2. For detailed information see http://www.nla.gov.au/kinetica/docdel.html

3. Public state and national libraries – 54.3 million books, 36.4 lending stock (ABS Public Libraries, Australia, 1999-2000 8561.0); university libraries hold 23 million monographs and 1.07 m serial titles (NBD figures 2002 - http://alia.org.au/publishing/alj/52.3/full.text/missingham.walls.html) (934,917 current service titles CAUL statistics 2002 http://www.caul.edu.au/stats/caul2002.xls); special libraries – approx 2.5 m (Australian National Bibliographic Database and special library figures)

4. Loans – public libraries 166,563,387 (http://www.casl.org.au/papers/_Toc32804809); university libraries 24,063,358 (CAUL statistics – loans plus ILLs); 2.5 million information service transactions National Library

5. Public, state, national - $792.2m (ABS 8561); universities $452 m(CASL statistics); specials est. 500 libraries @ $100,000 = $50 m

6. For example see http://www.arl.org/stats/pubpdf/arlstat02.pdf

7. Data derived from CAUL statistics – see http://www.caul.edu.au/stats/

8. For full report see http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/nrswg/illdd_rpt_sum.html

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