Meeting Evolving Research and Curriculum Needs: A Survey of Interlibrary Loan and OhioLINK Borrowing at an Academic Law Library

The research goal was to study the law faculty's interlibrary loan and OhioLINK borrowing activity to assess current subject gaps in the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library's collection. The authors analyzed and collated faculty research interests. The results indicate that additional purchases are required to support international law and health law, two curriculum areas currently under development at Cleveland-Marshall.     

Scan by Numbers: Interlibrary Loan Lending Statistics Shape Digital Initiative

In 2004, the Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services Department at the University of Central Florida Libraries began forwarding requests to Special Collections for review and potential lending. After compiling three years of data, an evaluation of the requests showed 23% of the requested items were in the public domain. Interlibrary Loan (ILL), Special Collections, and Digital Services began collaborating to digitize ILL requests on demand and create a digital collection of materials requested via interlibrary loan.     

Examining Change Within Interlibrary Loan

Technological innovations have changed the interlibrary loan landscape, leading many of its practitioners to wonder what the future holds for interlibrary loan. Examining the way in which change is discussed can reveal some insecurities on the part of interlibrary loan workers and can also provide direction as to where interlibrary loan is going.     

What are the Expectations of Interlibrary Loan and Electronic Reserves During an Economic Crisis?

The recent economic crisis has affected many institutions, including the once thought recession-resistant higher education. Declines in funding have forced libraries to look at ways to cut spending. As the public face of the library, access services departments face particularly tough decisions when the library makes financial cuts. Reduced spending in other departments can increase the workload for reserves and interlibrary loan departments. Significant changes in staffing or services can create a negative public image. This article will offer a few ideas about what might be done to save money and avoid these negative side effects.     

Portugal

In the library literature, a great deal of interest in patron-driven collection development has recently been expressed, especially in those programs that link acquisitions with interlibrary loan. However, the implementation of such programs has been limited, at least in part because of concerns over the potential for wasteful spending. The authors will attempt to address this common concern by assessing whether monies spent via a patron-driven acquisitions program were more or less effective than monies spent via traditional modes of acquisition.     

Connecting K–12 School Media Centers to University Library Resources Through Interlibrary Loan: A Case Study From Eastern North Carolina

Providing interlibrary loan service to K–12 schools is investigated in this article. Request analysis of a university interlibrary loan service to schools is presented along with a survey of those schools’ use of the service. Results from a survey of other libraries that provide similar loan services to schools are also presented. A lengthy literature review of interlibrary loan for K–12 schools places modern offerings in an historical perspective.     

Is It Good to Share? An Effectiveness Study of the Indiana Share Program

This article reports the results of an effectiveness study conducted on the Indiana Share Program, a collective interlibrary loan borrowing program managed by the Indiana State Library. A subset of interlibrary loan departments in Indiana was surveyed regarding satisfaction with the interlibrary loan process. Filled request and turnaround time statistics for the year 2010 were also collected. These were compared with the same survey and statistics gathered from the Share Program group. The study found that Share fared well in the statistics. The survey answers were also very similar, showing no statistically significant difference.     

Undergrads as Selectors: Assessing Patron-Driven Acquisition at a Liberal Arts College

This article evaluates the effectiveness of a small college library's patron-driven acquisition (PDA) program for its print monograph collection, which is unusual in that undergraduate students contribute all PDA selections. To make the analysis comprehensive, this study assesses the program's performance over nine years across four dimensions: circulation, appropriateness of selections, turnaround time, and cost. These four approaches yield varying conclusions about the efficacy of the program, thereby demonstrating the value of a multi-pronged assessment. The circulation advantages of patron-suggested books are less pronounced than in previous studies, which indicates that undergraduates may not consistently select appropriate titles for the local collection.     

When the Pilot Is Over: Picking the Program and Making It Stick,Purchase on Demand at the University of South Florida

In 2008 the Interlibrary Loan department of the University of South Florida, Tampa, began a Purchase on Demand program, using interlibrary loan requests to supplement Collection Development practices. After three years the program was analyzed for effectiveness and compared to other programs currently in operation. To achieve a complete evaluation, interlibrary loan patrons were surveyed on their awareness and use of the Purchase on Demand program. This article combines the analysis of USF's program with recommendations gained through administration and evaluation of Purchase on Demand.     

Interlibrary Loan Satisfaction Survey at the University of Evansville

The University of Evansville Libraries conducted an assessment to determine if interlibrary loan users were satisfied with the service. Patrons completed a survey online that gauged their levels of satisfaction with nine components of the University of Evansville Libraries’ interlibrary loan service. Overall, patrons were very satisfied with the service but offered concrete ways to improve the interlibrary loan experience, which were then implemented.