[ILL-L] ? Very Low Number of New Lending Requests(especiallyjournals) ?

Tue Sep 9 13:13:41 EDT 2008

Denise,
Interesting - we are experiencing the exact same statistical trends with
books versus journals, and we are also seeing the drop in journal requests
on the Borrowing end as well even though overall our Borrowing is going
through the roof (up more than 7% from FY07!).  I suspect that there are a
lot of things driving the decline in journal requests, including the success
of digitization initiatives such as JSTOR and Project Muse in providing
electronic "backfill" copies of old periodicals, as well as the predominance
of bundled online journal subscriptions for more recent receipts.  Google
Books and Scholar are proving much more useful than they used to be in this
regard as well, as are international digital initiatives such as Gallica2 in
France.  And with ILL budgets being what they are these days, often it's
more cost-effective to purchase an article directly from the publisher than
it is to pay a Lending institution's standard photocopy fee.

That being said, I also think ARIEL is being abandoned as the primary form
of ILL delivery between an increasing amount of libraries, pushing those
libraries that don't support Odyssey sending further and further down the
lending string.  It'll be interesting to see how this trend shakes out over
the next few years.

Best,
Tom Bruno
Widener ILL

On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 12:38 PM, Denise L Montgomery
<dmontgom at valdosta.edu>wrote:

>
> Try looking at your own borrowing numbers as well. I did a quick
> comparison check in ILLIAD of the numbers from the beginning of the
> term to today of this year, and the same period last year in ILLiad,
> and I was surprised to find they had dropped overall from
> 411 to 237 this year. The big drop was from 317 to 133 in periodicals
> (bearing out Melissa's theory of full-text journals in databases and
> open-source journals on the net). Personally, I don't think Odyssey has
> anything to do with it, nor RAPID: those are just delivery methods
> folks: if anything, the speed involved ought to bring us more requests
> since our users want it at all possible speed, especially if we are
> unafraid to toot our horns and say how good we are at getting it fast!
>
> Book requests actually went up, which in our state is pretty surprising
> because we have serious competition from GIL Express, our
> patron-initiated ILL system. The numbers rose from 94 to 104! Maybe it
> has something to do with the fact that we turned on Direct Request in
> our system, and advertised the fact that if you put in the ISBN #, it
> could be processed automatically? (subject to the restrictions in our
> profile, of course--but we don't say that on the log-in page).
>
> And the funny thing is, most of the time it hasn't worked since we
> upgraded to 7.3! It tries--and indicates that on the request--but we
> haven't had any requests go through on Direct Request since the upgrade.
>
>                                  Denise Montgomery
>                                  Valdsota State University Library
>
> Melissa Jackson wrote:
>
>
> >Yes, we have our LHRs in OCLC.  We've been updating and adding to them
> over the summer, as well as updating the database our patrons use to
> search our holdings.
> >
> >Melissa Jackson
> >ILL Librarian
> >Armstrong Atlantic State University (GAC)
> >
> >
> >>>>
> >From:  "Carol A. Vaeth" <cvaeth at ubalt.edu>
> >To:    "Interlibrary Loan Listserv" <ill-l at webjunction.org>
> >Date:  9/9/2008 9:38 AM
> >Subject:       RE: [ILL-L] ? Very Low Number of New Lending
> Requests(especiallyjournals) ?
> >
> >Just out of curiosity, do those libraries that are seeing a reduction in
> >Lending have their LHRs (local holding records)in OCLC?  I suspect that
> >many libraries take the time in the summer to update their Custom
> >Holdings lists and we all know that when selecting our lender string, we
> >favor those libraries that show their holdings information. Just another
> >possible factor...
> >
> >Carol A. Vaeth
> >ILL Coordinator - BAL       It doesn't get better
> >Langsdale Library                  or worse;
> >University of Baltimore     it just gets different.
> >1420 Maryland Ave
> >Baltimore MD 21201-5706
> >cvaeth at ubalt.edu
> >(410) 837-4283
> >fax (410) 837-4330
> >ariel 198.202.3.140
> >P Please consider the environment before printing this email.
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
> >[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Willa Reister
> >Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 9:21 AM
> >To: Interlibrary Loan Listserv
> >Subject: RE: [ILL-L] ? Very Low Number of New Lending
> >Requests(especiallyjournals) ?
> >
> >Full text databases are certainly a factor.  We are using them to fill
> >many
> >of our requests and assume we are not alone.
> >Willa Reister
> >
> >--
> >Interlibrary Loan
> >Knox County Public Library System
> >500 W Church
> >Knoxville, TN 37902
> >
> >865-215-8746
> >Fax to 865-215-8708
> >
> >---------- Original Message -----------
> >From: "Melissa Jackson" <Melissa.Jackson at armstrong.edu>
> >To: "Interlibrary Loan Listserv" <ill-l at webjunction.org>
> >Sent: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:51:32 -0400
> >Subject: RE: [ILL-L] ? Very Low Number of New Lending Requests
> >(especiallyjournals) ?
> >
> >> We've noticed lower-than-usual numbers as well.  We've been thinking
> >> that it was in part due to the rise in full-text databases.
> >>
> >> Melissa Jackson
> >> ILL Librarian
> >> Armstrong Atlantic State University (GAC)
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >This message has been scanned for viruses and
> >dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
> >believed to be clean.
> >
> >
> >
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>
>
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