Purpose This paper aims to review the current library and information science (LIS) literature for document supply, resource sharing and other issues such as open access (OA) that have an impact on the service. Design/methodology/approach The approach is based on the scanning of about 150 journals, reports, websites and blogs. Findings Of the 13 articles and reports reviewed, 12 are freely available, continuing the trend of increasing OA. As always, these days, much is happening on the OA front. Big Deals, demand-driven acquisition and discovery tools are reviewed. Originality/value The only regular literature review that focuses on interlending, document supply and related issues.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the most interesting points and currently discussed problems in the context of developments in the Czech Republic (CR).Design/methodology/approach - The paper describes the resource-sharing environment in the CR. It also presents some problematic issues of ILL and electronic document delivery (EDD).Findings - There is a great potential of implementing IT technologies into providing ILL and EDD services, but the current state of copyright agreements partially limits the resource-sharing environment.Originality/value - The paper presents a brief review of inter-lending and document delivery services in the CR based on statistics and surveys.
Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate library cooperation among the libraries of Turkish higher education institutions in the changing global environment.Design/methodology/approach - This study has been carried out with ILL librarians working in state and foundation university libraries in Turkey. The survey was sent to 140 inter library loan (ILL) librarians who were asked to answer 35 questions both open and closed. There were 100 responses which is an excellent response rate of 72 per cent. It was conducted with VETI (Data Collection and Statistics), which is a web-based form application developed by Istanbul Technical University.Findings - Turkish libraries are taking the opportunities offered by technical developments to serve their users with instant information by providing access to electronic resources and transferring their collections to electronic media. Reconstruction of ILL services to fulfill users' needs is inevitable because of the increasing expectations of users and emerging alternatives to access information.Originality/value - This is the first systematic national investigation into the state of ILL in Turkish libraries.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a personal viewpoint on the development of document supply in the context of the recent European Union (EU) decisions on open science. Design/methodology/approach The paper provides some elements to the usual questions of service development, about business, customers, added value, environment and objectives. Findings The EU goal for open science is 100 per cent available research results in 2020. To meet the challenge, document supply must change, include more and other content, serve different targets groups, apply innovative technology and provide knowledge. If not, document supply will become a marginalized library service. Originality/value Basically, open science is not library-friendly, and it does not offer a solution for the actual problems of document supply. But it may provide an opportunity for document supply to become a modern service able to deal with new forms of unequal access and digital divide.
Purpose - This study aims to describe the current status and usage trends of a new document delivery service (DDS) for foreign scholarly journals in Korea.Design/methodology/approach - Data were collected from 2010 to 2016 for the number of foreign journal subscriptions held by Foreign Research Information Centers (FRICs), number of FRIC DDS requests, the amount of government funds spent on the subscriptions, etc.Findings - There has been an increase in the number of foreign journal subscriptions and DDS transactions by FRICs, especially in the fields of science, technology and medicine.Originality/value - The DDS project in this study offers a useful example of collaboration between the government and academic libraries to provide research communities with foreign scholarly journals.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide preliminary results of the 2015 international interlending survey conducted by the ALA RUSA STARS International Interlibrary Loan Committee and compare these results to those of the survey conducted in 2011. Design/methodology/approach An international survey was developed using Qualtrics to both gather and analyze the results received after the survey was distributed via listservs and personal contacts. Findings The 2015 survey’s results generally showed similarities to those in 2011 with most participants both borrowing and lending materials internationally. The differences between the 2011 and 2015 survey are highlighted as are barriers to international interlending. Originality/value This study illustrates the most recent survey of international interlending practices with comparison to previous studies and will yield potential methods and activities for improving resource sharing globally.
Purpose - This paper aims to review the current library and information science (LIS) literature for document supply, resource sharing and other issues such as open access (OA) that have an impact on the service.Design/methodology/approach - The approach is based on the scanning of about 150 journals, reports, websites and blogs.Findings - OA continues to grow and, hence, the impact of document supply. Improvements in the Interlending and Document Supply service are satisfying.Originality/value - This paper is the only regular review of LIS literature in this subject area.
Purpose - This paper aims to review the current library and information science (LIS) literature for document supply, resource sharing and other issues such as open access (OA) that have an impact on the service.Design/methodology/approach - The approach is based on the scanning of about 150 journals, reports, Web sites and blogs.Findings - Nearly all material reviewed is freely available, continuing the trend of increasing OA. As always, these days, much is happening on the OA front. Big deals and Scholarly Communications are reviewed along with ebooks, users and of course ILL.Originality value - The only regular literature review that focuses on interlending, document supply and related issues.
Purpose This paper aims to provide an update to Tom Sanville’s 2007 overview of OhioLINK, a renowned US academic library consortium, and describe the current state of activity and services. Design/methodology/approach The approach used is descriptive. Findings OhioLINK’s main collaborative services include document delivery, resource sharing and the establishment of digital libraries, including electronic journals, electronic books and open-access materials such as electronic theses and dissertations. This update to Tom Sanville’s 2007 overview of OhioLINK issues and developments describes the current state of collaborative library services and resource sharing a decade later, including the challenges of hosted institutional repositories and the implications of shifting from shared print to e-book collections at the network level. Originality/value OhioLINK trends provide a snapshot of changing activity and sustainability in library resource sharing at network scale across many different types of academic libraries.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the value and benefits from newly developed relationships between the University of Alberta Libraries’ Interlibrary Loan Department and other institutions through the delivery of new services. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a descriptive review of the new services provided, including a centralized interlibrary loan service for members of the NEOS Consortium and an article delivery service for Can Tho University Library (Vietnam), an overview of the implementation of the services and a discussion of the value and benefits created. Findings A single-point of intake for interlibrary loan requests for a group of academic libraries can be implemented successfully with few drawbacks, providing benefits to all the participants. An article delivery service to an institution that provides no interlibrary loan services provides value through access to new resources and demonstrates not to be a burden on the provider; yet, this paper demonstrates that the primary value is in learning about their patrons’ needs. Practical implications Other institutions could replicate these services and relationships. Originality/value Single-point of intake for interlibrary loan in academic consortial environments has neither been demonstrated in the literature nor has any component of interlibrary loan been described to support international initiatives to assist libraries in disadvantaged countries.
Purpose This paper aims to describe the response of students to the shortage of materials at the Université d’Abomey-Calavi (Republic of Benin). Design/methodology/approach A survey was conducted with over 2,000 students of the Université d’Abomey-Calavi in 2014, and the data were analysed. The paper deals with two questions related to the university library services they use. Findings To satisfy their information and documentation needs, students visit several university library services even on different campuses. Practical implications The study recommends the setting up and the implementation of a long-term development plan for the University of Abomey-Calavi libraries. Originality/value The study describes the behaviour of students of a developing country when faced with a lack of relevant information and documentation resources.
Purpose - The purpose of this study is to describe a unique service offering by UK public libraries that provides access to over 15 million academic articles for free.Design/methodology/approach - The approach is descriptive.Findings - The service has been a success with users, but more training for staff, as well as promotion, is needed.Social implications - The study will be potentially important for enabling access to a vast amount of published academic articles for a wide section of UK citizens.Originality/value - The first article on this service is aimed specifically at the LIS community.
Purpose By definition, interlibrary lending is a process involving two libraries. The digital revolution changed the method by which the scientific documents were disseminated during the past couple of decades. Nowadays, researchers can exploit several software applications that enable them to upload, save and deliver their documents from one peer to another without the need for a middle man. This paper reviews this change via a study conducted in two Finnish academic universities. The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which researchers have adopted these new possibilities for document dissemination and how this change will affect the role of the libraries in document delivery in the future. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on a survey conducted with the academic professors in two Finnish universities. The results were analyzed descriptively. Findings Academics mainly used digital resources when acquiring documents; library interlending (ILL) was the least widely used means. The majority of the academics usually transmitted their own documents to other persons by e-mail. Research limitations/implications This paper is based on data from two Finnish universities. Practical implications Libraries should be better aware of current peer-to-peer document delivery practices and evaluate how this will impact on their interlibrary loan services. Social implications Libraries should be more active in document delivery implemented through the various internet applications for academic document dissemination. Originality/value Peer-to-peer document exchange is an inadequately investigated topic, especially from a library perspective.
Purpose - This study aims to describe and analyse interlibrary loans and document delivery (ILL/DD) in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and to evaluate the ILL/DD service quality of one particular library.Design/methodology/approach - ILL/DD at the Chinese Science Digital Library (CSDL) is described. The success of ILL/DD at CSDL is analysed. Finally, the service quality of one library's ILL/DD based on LibQUAL+ is evaluated.Findings - ILL/DD at CSDL can be improved through a multi-library union, and a modified LibQUAL+ model can be used to evaluate a library's ILL/DD service quality.Social implications - More patrons can access a better service, and the work efficiency of librarians can be improved.Originality/value - This study is helpful to librarians interested in ILL/DD and resource sharing in China.
Purpose - The paper aims to show how using a resource-sharing service can help you provide more resources to your users.Design/methodology/approach - This paper discusses interlibrary loan challenges and opportunities, specifically with reference to WorldShare Interlibrary Loan.Findings - This paper describes the service that connects libraries to the largest cooperative resource-sharing network with more than 10,000 borrowing and lending libraries worldwide, the possibilities for the future, facts and figures and how libraries around the world have used the solution successfully.Originality/value - This paper looks at how WorldShare Interlibrary Loan can help libraries overcome the challenges that they face regarding resource sharing.
Purpose - This paper aims to review the position of UnityUK and FABLibraries (Find a Book in Libraries) some five years after a review by the same author (with Elisabeth Robinson) was published in 2011.Design/methodology/approach - The UnityUK service and its co-service FABLibraries is placed in the current service and political context: changing politics and reductions in public service. The conclusions of a survey conducted by the University of Sheffield are noted as current technical developments.Findings - Subscriptions to UnityUK remain stable despite an overall decline in interlending. The FABLibraries service is well positioned to play a key role in the creation of a single digital presence for public libraries in England and in the UK.Practical implications - The outcome of major recent political change in respect of public service is not yet known, but there is reason to be confident about the role of the two services in supporting resource discovery and supply.Social implications - The FABLibraries service is well positioned to be the major building block in a national e-public library platform. This would provide a cost-effective means of making national resources accessible to everyone who can get online.Originality/value - The author provides an up-to-date perspective of the impact of change, recent government reports and public sector austerity on interlending and the position of key resource discovery tools in that environment.
Purpose This study aims to reflect on developments in document supply and scholarly communications and to look into the future of the service. Design/methodology/approach This study provides an informal overview. Findings The results of this study indicate that Interlending and Document Supply (ILDS) as a service has a long future ahead of it albeit at a lower level than in the recent past. Originality/value As a farewell to ILDS, it is inevitably original; its value will be judged by the reader.
Purpose This paper aims to describe the evolution of scientific communication, largely represented by the publication process. It notes the disappearance of the traditional publication on paper and its progressive replacement by electronic publishing, a new paradigm implying radical changes in the whole mechanism. It aims also at warning the scientific community about the dangers of some new avenues and why, rather than subcontracting an essential part of its work, it must take back full control of its production. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviews the emerging concepts in scholarly publication and aims to answer frequently asked questions concerning free access to scientific literature as well as to data, science and knowledge in general. Findings The paper provides new observations concerning the level of compliance to institutional open access mandates and the poor relevance of journal prestige for quality evaluation of research and researchers. The results of introducing an open access policy at the University of Liège are noted. Social implications Open access is, for the first time in human history, an opportunity to provide free access to knowledge universally, regardless of either the wealth or the social status of the potentially interested readers. It is an essential breakthrough for developing countries. Originality/value Open access and Open Science in general must be considered as common values that should be shared freely. Free access to publicly generated knowledge should be explicitly included in universal human rights. There are still a number of obstacles hampering this goal, mostly the greed of intermediaries who persuade researchers to give their work for free, in exchange for prestige. The worldwide cause of Open Knowledge is thus a major universal issue for the twenty-first century.
Purpose - This paper aims to present empirical evidence on the opinion and behaviour of French scientists (senior management level) regarding open access (OA) to scientific and technical information.Design/methodology/approach - The results are part of a nationwide survey on scientific information and documentation with 432 directors of French public research laboratories conducted by the French National Research Center (CNRS) in 2014.Findings - The CNRS senior research managers (laboratory directors) globally share the positive opinion towards OA revealed by other studies with researchers from the UK, Germany, the USA and other countries. However, they are more supportive of open repositories (green road) than of OA journal publishing (gold). The response patterns reveal a gap between generally positive opinions about OA and less supportive behaviours, principally publishing articles with article processing charges (APCs). A small group of senior research managers does not seem to be interested in green or gold OA and reluctant to self-archiving and OA publishing. Similar to other studies, the French survey confirms disciplinary differences, i.e. a stronger support for self-archiving of records and documents in HAL by scientists from Mathematics, Physics and Informatics than from Biology, Earth Sciences and Chemistry; and more experience and positive feelings with OA publishing and payment of APCs in Biology than in Mathematics or in Social Sciences and Humanities. Disciplinary differences and specific French factors are discussed, in particular in the context of the new European policy in favour of Open Science.Originality/value - For the first time, a nationwide survey was conducted with the senior research management level from all scientific disciplines. The response rate was high (> 30 per cent), and the results provide good insight into the real awareness, support and uptake of OA by senior research managers who provide both models (examples for good practice) and opinion leadership.
