PLA Blog

Interlibrary loan librarians are facing some difficult challenges. User expectations have risen, but so has the cost of delivering borrowed materials to them. This discussion group posed some interesting discussion questions about the evolving role that “interlibrary loan” plays in the larger scheme of the future of libraries.

• What trends are we seeing? One of the biggest trends is the push for home-delivery of items, spurred by non-library systems such as NetFlix and BookSwim. This is something that is taking place in Montana already, per the OCLC breakfast this morning.
• How has OCLC affected interlibrary loan? The pros and cons of using OCLC as the sole interlibrary loan module were discussed.
• Did union catalogs exist to glom onto, or did you have to create one from scratch? How does one create a union catalog? This question was posed because of the desire to have other options besides OCLC products for ILL. Examples given were JerseyCat in New Jersey and SearchOHIO in Ohio.
• How much access is enough? Just because a library fulfills 99% of it’s ILLs through local networks, does that mean that OCLC resource sharing isn’t important? Most libraries in the room claim they offer both systems.
• How does ILL dictate a library’s acquisitions department? Does what a library choose to purchase based on ILL stats?
• There was some debate as to whether collections should be user-driven as well as other aspects of the library.
• How do floating collections affect/alter ILL process?
• How do local/regional/state courier services play into the ILL process? With gasoline costs soaring, these costs are passed back to the library. This brought up the topic of digitization in an effort to stem the future courier fees.
• How do models like NetFlix and BookSwim affect traditional ILL processes? Are there partnership issues to be explored there (what would be in it for the companies?)?
• Perhaps the most controversial: What role does open-source ILL modules play? Is it really cost-effective?