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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 42 | December 1999
The quiet revolution: interlibrary loan and document delivery
Left: Charu Sood (NLA) and far right: Susan Magnay (State Library of New South Wales), Chair of the National Resource Sharing Working Group with Mary Jackson
Effective interlibrary loan (ILL) and document delivery (DD) processes are crucial for maintaining access to information. For many years, ILL has been a secondary service that received scant attention from administrators and users. However, as library resources, and therefore library collections, have been decreasing over the years, libraries are increasingly meeting user needs through ILL. This has raised the focus on the quality of interlibrary loan and document delivery services.
In Australia, the National Resource Sharing Working Group (NRSWG) was established to ensure that a robust, reliable and cost-effective interlending system, built on cooperation and agreed service standards and policies, is in place to serve Australian libraries and their users. As part of that process and to raise the profile of interlibrary loan and document delivery issues, the NRSWG arranged a presentation by Mary E. Jackson on the 22 October 1999 at the National Library of Australia. The presentation focused on the findings of an interlibrary loan performance measures study Mary had undertaken for the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) in the United States.
Mary was the principal investigator of the ARL study, a two-year examination of ILL operations in 119 North American research and college libraries. She has since been running a series of institutes around the United States and speaking to people around the world to publicise the findings of the study and to use them as a mechanism for improving interlibrary loan and document delivery practices.
The study investigated four main performance measuresdirect cost, turnaround time, fill rates and user satisfactionto discover the characteristics of high-performing borrowing and lending libraries.
Critical to high-performance borrowing libraries is the maximum use of technology. These libraries also regularly reassess and update their technological infrastructure to maintain or increase the efficiency of their borrowing. High-performing borrowers also use a single messaging system wherever possible, encourage user-initiated ordering, choose lenders based on turnaround time and fill rates rather than cost, and select staff with an interest in technology.
The study discovered few high-performing lending libraries. The two libraries that do perform well, at the universities of Wisconsin (Madison) and Alberta in Canada, have deliberately set out to make themselves libraries of first resort. Unlike most libraries, they see ILL as a core service they provide and encourage other libraries to come to them first with requests. This demonstrates what is the most statistically significant result of the studythe greater the lending volume, the lower the unit cost of ILL services. These libraries run their ILL services in a business-like manner and are able to function on a cost-recovery basis by taking advantage of the lower unit costs. Both libraries have substantial collections to allow them to provide this type of service.
Other characteristics of the high-performing lenders include maximising the use of technology, allowing for control over the entire lending process from mailroom to billing, looking for material in the stacks only once, and accepting all forms of payment (including credit cards).
Also critical to both high-performing borrowers and lenders were managers who supported interlibrary loan and document delivery activities in the library. This included encouraging improvements in processes and making staff accountable for performance.
Marys parting words, quoting her colleague Shirley Baker, Dean of Washington University, encouraged staff to work towards better interlibrary loan and document delivery practices:
The next step is actionaction to make not incremental but astounding improvements in the performance of every librarys interlibrary loan unit. We have learned from the best performers that even the best can get better, and the benefits accrue to us all
More information about the NRSWG, Mary Jacksons presentation and the American Research Libraries study can be found at: http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/nrswg/.
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: lkirwan@nla.gov.au