Spilling Out of the Funnel: How Reliance Upon Interlibrary Loan Affects Access to Information

Abstract

Academic libraries that cancel serials titles typically offer interlibrary loan (ILL) as an alternative means to access these titles.This study examines how serialsW hen academic libraries cancel journal subscriptions, patrons lose immediate access to the content within those journals.However, patrons whose libraries participate in interlibrary loan (ILL) programs retain the ability to discover the existence of desired content through indexes (often called "databases") and obtain the material from partner libraries. Many librarians are confident that this model of obtaining material is an effective alternative to subscriptions because, as Mortimore writes, a well-run ILL program can "provide access to the right materials at the right time." The practice of canceling subscriptions and relying on ILL presents two related but distinct concerns for library administrators, concerns that this paper addresses. First, savings from subscriptions budgets may be countered by increased ILL costs. Second, it is not established whether ILL meets patron information needs as well as direct subscriptions do.Accessing content via ILL is a very different experience from accessing it directly from a library portal.A patron seeking content than a subscribed title typically finds the material in an index and can begin reading it within seconds.A patron who uses ILL must undertake additional steps in the library interface to place the ILL request and wait hours

What ARE We Thinking? Collections Decisions in an Academic Library

“…If SUNY Poly isn't able to establish models that work for our evolving nature, then pay per use models or supplementary programs for access, such as Copyright Clearance Center's Get it Now and reliance on Interlibrary Loan, become necessary. Although the approach of using ILL and other methods of providing access to pay per use material does not allow for unfettered access to content, the extra steps of clicking through link resolver pages to submit ILLs has been shown by Knowlton and colleagues to lead to almost onethird of users to determining they do not want to request the article (Knowlton, Kristanciuk, & Jabaily, 2015). Indeed, reliance on ILL and linkresolver-based access does lead to less usage, but with downloads and requests costing money, the filtering of downloads can lead to longer-term lower costs.…”

Leveraging Use‐by‐Publication‐Age Data in Serials Collection Decisions

“…Google Analytics records the Open URLs generated by each link resolution and the date of publication is included in the OpenURL. A fuller description of this method can be found in Knowlton, Kristanciuk, and Jabaily (2015). This allows us to calculate user interest in articles by year of publication.…”

Developing a Data Narrative: Analyzing Trends in an Academic Interlibrary Loan Department

“…Knowlton et al (2015), Kress et al (2011), and Murphy and Greenwood (2009) are all excellent examples of the need to understand how and why patrons interact with interlibrary loan. In the case of Albertsons Library, another consideration in the decline of borrowing requests was whether the same number of users were requesting fewer materials.…”

“…Clearly patron borrowing behavior had not significantly changed over time, but something was causing patrons, principally graduate students, to stop signing up for access to interlibrary loan services. Knowlton et al (2015) was the rate at which patrons viewed non-held materials and did not complete the ILL process. Though Albertsons Library utilizes Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) to allow single sign-on, this does not migrate patron information such as user address.…”

“…electronic serials cancelations on ILL workflow (Calvert, Fleming, and Hill, 2013;Knowlton, Kristanciuk, and Jabaily, 2015). Though researchers consistently concluded that canceling journal packages does not negatively impact ILL, (Calvert et al, 2013 p.186;Knowlton et al, 2015, p.11) it is an important topic to revisit as reliance on electronic resources continues to grow.…”