Measuring the Effectiveness of Queen Elizabeth II Library Document Delivery Operations Before and After the Implementation of Relais International’s Enterprise Document Delivery Software

Abstract

Objective -To compare the performance of the Queen Elizabeth II Document Delivery operation before and after the implementation of Relais International's Enterprise document delivery software.Methods -This paper employs methodology established in the Association of Research Libraries' 1998 publication, "Measuring the Performance of Interlibrary Loan Operations" and repeated in ARL's "Assessing ILL/DD Services: New Cost-Effective Alternatives," published in 2004. In both studies, three measures were used to evaluate the efficiency of document delivery operations: fill rate, turnaround time and direct costs. Both studies offer ARL benchmark or mean scores for each efficiency measure. This paper compares Queen Elizabeth II Document Delivery (QEII/DD) scores for each efficiency measure with those reported in both ARL studies.Results -Data for the two periods under review, 1999-2000 and 2004-2005, indicate that borrowing fill rates remained relatively stable, showing only a 3% drop in the latter year, while lending fill rates showed a significant increase (11%). Turnaround times for filled QEII/DD borrowing returnable requests were faster on average by 4.2 days or 24%. Turnaround times for QEII/DD non-returnable borrowing requests also show improvement: a filled non-returnable request was faster on average by 1 day or 12%. The average cost of a Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2007, 2:2 56QEII/DD borrowing request has remained stable : $22.82 in 1999-2000 and $22.61 in 2004-2005. In contrast, the average cost of a QEII/DD lending request has increased slightly: from

CARL Libraries – a Canadian resource-sharing experience

“…McGillivray et al (2009), for example, described the Ontario Council of University Libraries use of VDX software in a consortial setting. Likewise, Warner (2007) looked at the effectiveness of Relais document delivery software at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Finally, Dalton (2007) examined the effect of restrictive copyright law on electronic reserves in Canada.…”