Impact of DOCLINE on interlibrary loan service at the National Library of Medicine

In March 1985, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) began implementation of DOCLINE, its automated interlibrary loan request routing and referral system. By the end of fiscal year (FY) 1987, over 1,400 biomedical libraries in all seven regions of the Regional Medical Library network were using the system. This report summarizes the findings of an analysis of the interlibrary loan (ILL) requests received in FY 1987, comparing the results with a similar analysis done in FY 1984 to describe any changes in the requests or service which might be attributable to DOCLINE implementation. DOCLINE has had a substantial impact upon ILL loan service at NLM. An increase in the number of ILL requests (35% over FY 1984) can be attributed to the speed and ease with which requests may be routed to NLM through DOCLINE. Requests which cannot be filled by local or regional libraries are automatically routed by the system to NLM as the library of last resort. NLM's fill rate for serial requests has declined, however, from 78% filled in FY 1984 to 67% filled in FY 1987. Some of the decline results from the 11,000 requests that NLM did not fill because the borrowing libraries were not willing to pay the NLM charge for filling the loans.     

Analysis of external and internal interlibrary loan requests: aid in collection management

The analysis of 60,779 external interlibrary loan requests for copies of periodical articles from the collection of Erasmus University Medical Library in 1988 is described. The study was used for planning the length of backruns to be retained due to space limitations that forced the disposal of older volumes. More than 50% of requests were for the most recent two-year period, and 90% of requests could be filled with a twenty-year run of periodicals. In 1989, 4,157 internal requests were received for periodicals not owned; these were analyzed to determine those most commonly requested. Prior to subscribing, new titles were reviewed as to price, bibliometric indicators, number of requests, length of backfile, and the number of requesting departments. The Library Advisory Board decides on cancellation or purchase of periodicals; the elements considered are described.     

大学图书馆参与MOOC版权服务的实践及启示——以杜克大学图书馆为例

认为大规模开放在线课程（MOOC）是高等教育领域的一个热点议题,国外图书馆以不同方式积极参与。其中,版权支持服务是大学图书馆参与MOOC运动最为重要的方式之一。详细介绍杜克大学图书馆如何从“合理使用”指南、版权许可服务、寻找可替代的开放获取资源3个方面为MOOC提供版权支持。杜克大学图书馆的版权服务模式及对开放获取运动的积极推进值得我们学习和借鉴。     

数字图书馆与作品的合理使用

版权法没有合理使用的明确标准,有关合理使用的问题是依照个案事实裁判。现有版权立法也没有规制数字图书馆版权侵权问题,面对信息技术和网络技术对版权合理使用的挑战,传统版权法认定合理使用的四要件显然不利于公众利益和技术创新,数字图书馆的出现为扩大合理使用适用范围提供了良好的机会。     

User satisfaction survey and usage of an electronic desktop document delivery service at an academic medical library

In June 2000, the Biomedical Library at the University of South Alabama introduced Prospero, an electronic desktop document delivery service. From June 2000 to November 2002, Prospero delivered 28% of interlibrary loan requests and 72% of document delivery requests. In November 2002, the library conducted a user satisfaction survey of the Prospero service. Forty-two surveys were used. Fifteen responses were received from affiliated faculty, staff, and students, who generally expressed satisfaction with the service. Twenty-seven responses were received from unaffiliated users, comprised of medical libraries, individual users, and businesses. Based on the survey results, the library deemed the Prospero service a success. To better support users, the library's Web page was updated to include hardware and software requirements for successful use of the Prospero service, as well as screen shots of the Prospero process.     

PDA power at the bedside

George Washington University's Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library was investigating adding PDA resources to the collection when a medical education grant was received. Funds were used for a pilot project to compare PDA use by third-year medical students (MSIII), fourth-year medical students (MSIV), second-year physician assistant (PAII) students, and residents in the clinical setting. The PDA Committee evaluated various titles by the following criteria: both Palm and PocketPC operating systems compatibility, ease of use, depth of information, product cost, and a wide target audience. Griffith's 5 Minute Clinical Consult by Skyscape was selected. Library registration was required to receive the software and PDA downloading instructions. A short, Web-based questionnaire was developed to evaluate the product's use in the clinical setting. A low response rate of 74 questionnaires (23% of participants) was received and analyzed in March 2004. As additional funding becomes available, PDA software will be seriously considered as additions to the collection.     

Cancelled requests:a study of interlibrary loan requests for items held in a medical library collection

This paper presents the results of a study to document and analyze a sample of interlibrary loan requests received from library patrons of an academic medical library for items that are actually held in the collection of the library. This category is referred to as cancelled requests. The purpose of the study was to attempt to measure the degree to which library patrons are not making the best possible use of the collection and understand why this was taking place. Suggestions are presented for steps to lower the cancellation rate.     

The long tail: a usage analysis of pre-1993 print biomedical journal literature

Objective: The research analyzes usage of a major biomedical library''s pre-1993 print journal collection.Methodology: In July 2003, in preparation for a renovation and expansion project, the Biomedical Library at the University of California, San Diego, moved all of its pre-1993 journal volumes off-site, with the exception of twenty-two heavily used titles. Patrons wishing to consult one of these stored volumes could request that it be delivered to the library for their use. In the spring of 2006, an analysis was made of these requests.Results: By July of 2006, 79,827 journal volumes published in 1992 or earlier had been requested from storage. The number of requests received declined with age of publication. The usage distribution exhibited a “long tail”: 50% of the 79,827 requests were for journal volumes published before 1986. The availability of electronic access dramatically reduced the chance that corresponding print journal volumes would be requested.Conclusions: The older biomedical print journal literature appears to be of continued value to the biomedical research community. When electronic access was provided to the older literature, demand for older print volumes declined dramatically.

Highlights

• Analysis of requests for stored biomedical journal volumes published prior to 1993 indicates that older biomedical journal literature receives substantial use: during this 3-year study, there were nearly 80,000 requests for journal volumes published in 1992 or earlier, with half the requests for volumes published from 1986–1992 and 40% of the request for volumes published from 1970–1985. These results indicate that retaining older print volumes, or providing easy access to the older literature through electronic journals or other means, will likely be required to meet user information needs.
• Use of older journal volumes varies by title and by user population, and a small number of journal titles were responsible for most of the use.
• Requests for older print biomedical journal titles dropped significantly when electronic access became available.

Implications

• Biomedical libraries should carefully consider implications of eliminating on-site access to older journal literature for users and budgets.
• Removing access to older journal literature may result in higher demand for interlibrary loan and document delivery services.
• Biomedical libraries can safely substitute reliable electronic access to older literature to meet ongoing needs for this information, thereby creating space for other purposes.

     

Pricing and Licensing for Museum Digital Content

Museums' rights and reproduction departments are overwhelmed by and underprepared for requests for image use in electronic media. This article will evaluate related models for pricing and fees used by non-art industries, and provide some interim guidelines for museums while they make the transition to supplying requests for electronic media.     

Content Analysis of Restrictive Publisher Copyright Policies for Electronic Reserves

ABSTRACT

A case study of a large urban academic library with an established electronic reserve system and copyright management database was attempted in order to analyze restrictions in publishers' electronic reserve copyright policies. The researcher proposed that publishers' electronic reserve copyright policies and the treatment of copyright permission requests restrict what and how much can be made available to students on an electronic reserve system. Background research on fair use, copyright laws, and library and publisher policies and positions on electronic reserve copyright issues is presented. The research methodology is outlined and analysis tools are explained. The results of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed. Appendices include samples of the analysis tools.     

Exploring FOI publicity patterns: The case of Italian municipalities

This paper aims to study FOI publicity implementation patterns by Italian municipalities' (>30,000 inhabitants). The analysis relies on data collected through an original survey of the municipalities' websites. Data allow inspecting the information that local governments disclose about the procedures for the presentation of FOI requests and how the FOI requests received in the past were managed. Cluster analyses reveal that the municipalities are rather heterogeneous in managing FOI publicity. Some of them provide full disclosure of relevant information; instead, others show non-compliance with the guidelines issued by the Italian central government. Regression analyses suggest that municipalities' size and income positively correlate with more elevated publicity. Civic capital is also positively connected with information about the procedures for presenting FOI requests. Factors affecting the demand for information about FOI, such as education and access to the internet, do not seem to be linked with publicity patterns.     

Determination of continuing medical education needs of clinicians from a literature search study, Part I. The study.

Continuing medical education is an area of current concern to health sciences librarians. A comprehensive study of literature searches requested by physicians and by fourth-year medical students serving their five-week preceptorship with a rural physician was conducted: (1) to determine if there is any pattern to the requests received so that areas of study for continuing medical education can be ascertained; and (2) to determine whether there is any appreciable difference in nature and complexity between those searches requested by clinicians and those requested by medical student preceptees. Literature search requests were examined in terms of individual MeSH subjects, subcategories, and categories for each subject covered in every search. This analysis has demonstrated that assessing the clinical problems of practicing physicians may be one method of determining needed continuing medical education topics.     

Document Delivery at a Veterinary Medical Library

The purpose of this study is to assess the use of document delivery services provided for primary clientele of the Veterinary Medical Library at Auburn University. This study describes and quantifies external library use patterns of the College of Veterinary Medicine faculty, staff and students, for a twelve-month period, though an analysis of the library's courier and interlibrary loan services. Three hypotheses are tested: (1) the majority of courier and interlibrary loan requests are for serials; (2) most serial requests are for nonveterinary journals; and (3) the demand for interlibrary loan and courier services follows a non-random pattern of distribution, i.e., the numbers of requests per month are unequal. The first two hypotheses are confirmed. Of the 2,376 requests for library materials external to VML, 2,197 (92%) are for serials; of the serials requests 1,608 (73%) are for nonveterinary journals. The third hypothesis is also confirmed. The chi square predicates a nonrandom distribution of requests by month. This study defines the nature of veterinary research as interdisciplinary. Findings identify collection weaknesses and requirements for new acquisitions.     

Copyright’s fair use doctrine and digital data

The digitization of works renders them not only easy to copy and distribute. It makes them easy to transform from one medium to another. Many of the same fair use questions posed by the copying or use of computer programs recur when other kinds of digital data are copied or manipulated. There are some situations in which digital copying would almost certainly be permitted as fair use, and some in which fair use defenses would be futile. This article was adapted from a column that first appeared inACM Communications. Published by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery.     

FOI in transition: A comparative analysis of the Freedom of Information Act performance between the Obama and Trump administrations

FoIA is an important marker of transparency and the flow of government information in a democracy. Stakeholders such as the news media have been critical of how government policies affect access to that information. In this context, this study systematically analyzed the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) performances between the Obama and the Trump administrations regarding the efficiency and disposition of requests, appeals processing and success, staff workload, processing fees, and the use of exemptions. Data indicate that the Trump administration underperformed in the processing of requests, the release of records, and it has accelerated the use of exemptions to deny requests. There was also no marked improvement over the previous administration in performance among other parameters. The study affirms prior results that indicate that FoIA performance is explained better by legacy, and some trends transcend administrations. The study also addresses the methodological problems with FoIA data and suggests remedies for scholars.     

Testing the fairness of citation indicators for comparison across scientific domains: The case of fractional citation counts

Citation numbers are extensively used for assessing the quality of scientific research. The use of raw citation counts is generally misleading, especially when applied to cross-disciplinary comparisons, since the average number of citations received is strongly dependent on the scientific discipline of reference of the paper. Measuring and eliminating biases in citation patterns is crucial for a fair use of citation numbers. Several numerical indicators have been introduced with this aim, but so far a specific statistical test for estimating the fairness of these numerical indicators has not been developed. Here we present a statistical method aimed at estimating the effectiveness of numerical indicators in the suppression of citation biases. The method is simple to implement and can be easily generalized to various scenarios. As a practical example we test, in a controlled case, the fairness of fractional citation count, which has been recently proposed as a tool for cross-discipline comparison. We show that this indicator is not able to remove biases in citation patterns and performs much worse than the rescaling of citation counts with average values.     

从Google数字图书馆计划看合理使用的新发展

通过研究合理使用在数字时代的存在价值及其发展,分析Google数字图书馆计划涉及合理使用的几个主要法律问题,结合数字环境下合理使用判定的主要标准进一步分析其在美国法律制度下是否属于合理使用,并将我国目前数字图书馆建设的若干典型模式与Google模式作比较,提出双层合理使用模式的方案,最后阐述欧盟、美国和中国等合理使用制度的新发展。     

Providing access to local government information: The nature of public library activity

This article focuses on the problems associated with providing access to local government information. The research on which it is based is from a 1986 survey conducted by the author of 265 public libraries in six library systems in northern Illinois, the largest comparative study of public library providers of local government information conducted to date. Fifty-five active providers of local government information (those that received requests for this information at least every two weeks) were identified: the findings are based on telephone and group interviews with key staff of those libraries. The article examines a variety of methods that might be used to increase access to local government information. It analyzes the nature of requests received and the types of responses given by these libraries. It examines the major problems associated with providing access to local government information and discusses the reasons given by librarians for providing access to local government information sources. The article concludes that a serious local government information gap exists and that librarians who seek to over-come it must articulate a role that addresses the serious barriers that must be overcome before a library can provide meaningful access to local government information.     

The nature of the use and users of the Midwest Regional Medical Library

Using a 10 percent random sample of all requests submitted to the Midwest Regional Medical Library during 1968-1969, this study has revealed that physicians constitute the user group making the most requests, that physicians request periodical materials most, that 86.6 percent of materials requested were for periodicals, and that over one-third of materials requested was more than ten years old. It was found that 66.3 percent of requests were filled, that "Pathology, Diseases, and Treatment" was the subject category with the highest percentage of requests, and that this category and Materia Medica were the subjects accounting for over 50 percent of the requests from all users. The subject categories most frequently requested by physicians were found to be the same (Pathology, Diseases, and Treatment and Materia Medica) as for educators and researchers. The most requests from students were in the Materia Medica and "other" subject categories. These findings are significant for drawing up acquisition policy for both the John Crerar Library, which supplies the physical facilities for the MRML, and the borrowing library which submits the requests for users.     

The Impacts of Library Services on Interlibrary Loan Requests Canceled due to Local Availability

Abstract

Interlibrary loan (ILL) services receive requests for resources that are available locally and form a major portion of canceled requests. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between requests canceled due to local availability and three aspects to identify impacts on ILL. The authors explored library service aspects such as collection format, the link resolver knowledge base, and discovery system functionality for potential influence on requests for locally available resources. Quantitative methods were used to identify evidence of different aspects’ impact through analysis of ILL borrowing request data. The most important finding was that the discovery system had impact on ILL services by improving retrievability of locally available resources published recently. The results suggest that a modern discovery system can efficiently provide more relevant results sourced from a carefully curated set of authoritative resources, save users’ time to access available materials, and reduce library staff members’ time and effort. This study will be helpful to libraries through its analysis of library services that impact the cancelation of ILL requests due to local availability and how those services may influence service improvement.