A survey of interlibrary loans at Rud^‐‐er Bošković Institute Library, Croatia, 2003‐2008

Abstract

Purpose-The purpose of this survey is to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of interlibrary loan (ILL) at the RBI Library in Croatia.Design/methodology/approach -Various indices were measured including: the percentage of fulfilled ILL requests, the difference between copy and loan requests, the difference between requests fulfilled free of charge and fee based and also to calculate the document delivery time. The analyzed data on received ILL requests were gathered via an inhouse developed application for ILL called SEND, via which RBI researchers submit their ILL requests to the RBI Library.Findings -This survey showed a high percentage of fulfilled ILL requests (94.6%), but there was also a surprisingly high percentage of cancelled ILL requests, because RBI Library owned the requested documents (21.8%). Most ILL requests were copy requests and the analysis of the gathered data showed a trend of acquiring more documents free of charge. Delivery time has decreased in the period of the survey, and in 2008, it was less than 6 working days for copy requests and approximately 10 days for loan requests. The delivery time was shorter for fee based requests.Originality/value -This paper presents a systematic analysis of ILL service of the RBI Library for a six year period (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008).