[ILL-L] ? Very Low Number of New Lending
Requests(especiallyjournals) ?
Denise L Montgomery
dmontgom at valdosta.edu
Tue Sep 9 15:11:54 EDT 2008
Tom,
I saw a story recently in one of the library newsletters I receive
recently--either Am Libraries, or LJ Express (sorry I don't remember
which one)--but it said that more people are being driven back to using
the free services that libraries offer, and I presume that means they
are buying fewer books, and rediscovering ILL. After all, though some
public libraries do charge for the service, the majority of academic
libraries do not. Which could account for why book requests are going
up. Most folks still don't want to read e-books in their present form.
And though the Kindle is tempting
(my boss has one and I have to admit it looks like the most readable
format I've seen) both the reader and the product cost way too
much...if it cost about $100 and I could load it up with free books
from the net, I might consider it.
Denise Montgomery
Valdosta State University
Tom Bruno wrote:
>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
>> Valdosta 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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>> >ILL-L at webjunction.org
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>> >
>> >
>>
>>
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>
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