Interlending and document supply:
a review of the recent literature: 62
Mike McGrath
Editor, Interlending & Document Supply, Leeds, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the most recent literature concerning document supply and related matters.
Design/methodology/approach – The approach is based on the reading of over 150 journals as well as monographs, reports and web sites.
Findings – It was found that the fundamental debate on the direction of scholarly publishing continues intensely. Electronic books remain a minority
market but the literature at least remains optimistic. The mass digitisation of books continues apace. Open access continues to grow but with
continuing and widely differing views on its impact.
Originality/value – The paper represents a useful source of information for librarians and others interested in document supply and related matters.
Keywords Interlending, Resource sharing, Copyright law, Electronic books
Paper type General review
Introduction
Writing this review every three months gives one an odd view
of the literature, which seems to switch interests almost
telepathically. There is little this quarter on e-journals but
more articles on institutional repositories than are manageable
in this already overlong review. Writing on open access
continues at a high level but nothing on big deals and little on
licensing – at least that I can identify.
Document supply and resource sharing
Conventional document supply is generally in decline – with
some important exceptions such as in Denmark – of which
country more later. So it is apposite that The Journal of
Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Electronic Reserve
(phew!) devotes much of its latest issue to staffing issues. In
particular, the opportunities for ILL librarians in a time of
threat are explored by (Egan, 2007). As she writes:
The service centers may experience declines in demand for their services. In
response, some libraries have already redeployed interlibrary loan staff. Still
others, however, have redefined the interlibrary loan function and in doing so
have made the interlibrary loan librarian a more vital member of the library.
This substantial article covers the background of ILL,
statistical analysis, cooperative arrangements, innovative
developments and concludes on a welcome and positive
note. Well worth reading. You can obtain this article and
indeed any other from this journal – for a fee – via www.
HaworthPress.com or by e-mailing docdelivery@
haworthpress.com or of course you can subscribe. Other
articles argue for the benefits of professionalism in ILL,
(Davis, 2007); a survey of ILL staffing structures in
79 libraries showing their unique characteristics
(Beckendorf, 2007); the role of operations managers in ILL
operations (Forro, 2007); managing ILL staff (Janke and
Weible, 2007); applying organisation theory (Kirchner,
2007); and motivating ILL staff in a time of shrinking
budgets (Burkey-Wade, 2007). If that isn’t enough then book
posting prices are compared in Mazurkiewicz (2007). There is
much of interest here for ILL librarians, principally in the
USA, but to an extent globally as well. The French
bibliographic agency is described by its Director with special
reference to document supply. Its objectives and history are
outlined. The French integrated catalogue, SUDOC, contains
7.58 million records and 22.4 million holdings statement. In
addition it supports document requesting and even full text
for certain categories of material such as digitised theses. Of
particular interest is the recent study on the future of
interlibrary lending in France, which was critical both
technically and administratively of the current situation. The
response to the report and future developments are well
covered (Be´rard, 2007). WorldCat is known to us all as a
useful finding tool – after all they do have nearly a billion
records and 60,000 participating libraries – see www.oclc.org/
worldcat/statistics/default.asp for statistics. Nonetheless
document supply librarians still have many problems – a
US survey identified examples such as: “foreign language
dictionaries, medical and dental articles, conference papers,
reports, patents, reference materials and dissertations”
(Liptak, 2007). A useful if limited list of resources to help is
marred by a very inadequate section on document supply
services in which only Loansome Doc is mentioned. What
about the largest and most comprehensive document supplier
in the world – The British Library Document Supply Centre
– to name but one? An article with more empirical evidence
on using a document supplier rather than subscribing to new
journals concludes that:
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-1615.htm
Interlending & Document Supply
36/1 (2008) 57–64
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0264-1615]
[DOI 10.1108/02641610810856390]
This review results primarily from the scanning of over 150 LIS journals
and many web sites and discussion lists. Access to the journals has been
provided by the British Library Document Supply Centre, without whose
cooperation the review would not be possible.
57

. . . based primarily on a cost-per-use basis, we are hoping that the low-use or
low-use/high-cost journals that we will be cancelling will help us to pare our
journal subscriptions down to a core collection while allowing us to provide
journal articles that meet the growing diverse research needs on campus via a
document delivery service.
The chosen supplier for the pilot was Infotrieve, with an
impressive 66 per cent of articles delivered within one day.
The research was conducted at The University of New
Hampshire in the USA (Carroll and Brink, 2007). The role of
document supply in supporting small businesses receives little
attention. A substantial article on the service provided by the
New York Public Library describes it in detail and refers to
their document supply service – “NYPL Express, the
Library’s fee based operation” (Cohen and McDonough,
2007). Document supply tends to be the poor relation in so-
called integrated library systems (ILS) in countries with
centralised document suppliers such as the UK and France.
However a widespread dissatisfaction with ILSs is evidenced
even in the USA where the assumption – by this writer at
least – is that it was well catered for given the decentralised
structure of document supply in that country. However from a
small but useful survey comes the conclusion that:
One thing is clear: librarians are no longer satisfied with the systems that
vendors are providing and they are looking for alternatives. Librarians know
what they need and, in many cases, it’s pretty straightforward. So who will
build the system that we’re dreaming of? (Bahr, 2007).
A survey of electronic document delivery in UK libraries
found that its use is now widespread in universities and likely
to increase, although seldom used in public libraries. The
central role of the British Library in leading innovations such
as Secure Electronic Delivery is brought out (Walton, 2007).
A White Paper by Anne Beaubien under the banner of The
Association of Research Libraries in the USA describes the
increase in ILL activity in the USA and the reasons for it.
Increases are confined mainly to returnables and are ascribed
to increased awareness by users, the continuing library budget
crisis but also the improved service provided, especially by
user initiated requesting systems. A useful, brief and readable
paper freely available at: www.arl.org/bm , doc/
ARL_white_paper_ILL_june07.pdf. What is particularly
interesting internationally is why does the USA buck the
general decline internationally? Certainly the improved
service offered by user-initiated requesting must be one
reason and deserves more attention from non-US libraries. (A
UK initiative in public libraries is due to be piloted in 2008
and ILDS will be publishing an article on this exciting
development.) Two articles from Sweden deal with different
aspects of resource sharing in Sweden. The first describes the
four national library systems run under the title LIBRIS, one
of which supports ILL requesting: “More than 1,600 library
units send ILL requests via LIBRIS [. . .] More than 350 of
these are situated [. . .] in Denmark, Finland, Iceland and
Norway”. ILL requests distributed via LIBRIS have declined
by 39 per cent from a peak in 1999 of 580,000; however there
was a decline of only 4 per cent in returnables whereas non-
returnables were down by 78 per cent (Sagnert, 2007). The
second article deals with SAGA, which “integrates document
requests from a diversity of ordering systems”. The
development and future prospects for SAGA are discussed
(Gavel, 2007). The clever takeover tactics of OCLC have
borne fruit in the UK where the combination of the expertise
of OCLC, PICA and Fretwell Downing won the contract for
providing a new resource sharing service for the UK’s public
library sector. The latest developments are discussed together
with future plans in Birch (2007). In fact I learnt recently that
OCLC has actually bought 14 “for profit”, companies which
makes it a rather bizarre hybrid.
Mass digitisation
I cannot recommend too highly a splendid polemical – but
well referenced – critique of criticisms of the Google Book
Project. It stands out amid the rather earnest style of much of
the literature. The author’s main thrust is against an article by
Paul Duguid on the handling by Google of Sterne’s Tristram
Shandy. One quote must suffice:
Judging the efficacy of an operation of such mammoth proportions by its skill
at handling two versions of one odd [odd typographically – MM] book
seems equivalent to evaluating ecological threats to the Pacific Ocean by
looking at one dead starfish in Malibu, Calif.
She then sets out what librarians need to do in order to give
access to this digital cornucopia. Get it and read it! See www.
infotoday.com for the very reasonable subscription
information and their free e-newletters (Quint, 2007).
The National Library of Scotland produces an excellent
and free magazine describing developments at the library (see
www.nls.uk). Their latest issue carries a brief and useful
article on “industrial-scale digitisation” and the NLS’s
contribution to various projects (Hunter, 2007). The BL/
Microsoft digitisation project is well known to readers of this
review. However, a straightforward account describes the
process of scanning 50,000 pages a day within two years
(Ashling, 2007). An interview with Brewster Kahle of the
Open Content Alliance casts much light on the workings of
the OCA and criticisms of the Google Book project
(Albanese, 2007b).
Open access
The momentum for OA has become such that the passage
through the US law system of a Bill which includes
mandatory deposit of articles on projects that are federally
funded is progressing well. The latest journal-based
information comes from September 2007:
US taxpayers fund the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with nearly $28
billion and more than 60,000 published studies are generated annually.
Researchers would be required to deposit their electronic manuscripts
immediately upon acceptance by a peer reviewed journal; the manuscript
would be freely accessible to the public no later than 12 months after
publication (Peek, 2007a).
The excellent Peter Suber updates to November and brings
news that:
For the first time ever, the Senate voted to demand an OA mandate at the
NIH. Because the House of Representatives adopted the same language in
July, this is also the first time ever that both houses of Congress have
demanded an OA mandate at the NIH. The OA mandate still has to clear
two hurdles before it is law: the House and Senate versions of the bill have to
be reconciled before going to the President, and then President has to sign it.
President Bush has threatened to veto the bill on grounds unrelated to its OA
provision. But the victory is important even if the bill faces a Presidential
veto, and the importance is not merely symbolic: the Senate vote actually
helps the mandate survive a veto.
Not often mentioned in the analyses of the progress of this
Appropriations Bill is that most large commercial publishers
– the group most opposed to the Bill’s provision on OA – are
European and hence their profits not of much direct concern
to the US legislature – or indeed to the president. Peter
Interlending and document supply: a review of the recent literature: 62
Mike McGrath
Interlending & Document Supply
Volume 36 · Number 1 · 2008 · 57–64
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