Study Fails to Link ILL Usage Patterns to Liaison Activities

Abstract

A Review of:
Leykam, Andrew. “Exploring Interlibrary Loan Usage Patterns and Liaison Activities: The Experience at a U.S. University.” Interlending & Document Supply 36.4 (2008): 218-24.

Objective - To investigate Interlibrary Loan (ILL) usage patterns, and connect them to liaison activities beyond collection development.

Design – Pattern analysis of ILL requests.

Setting – Library of The College of Staten Island, a mid-size, public university with predominantly undergraduate enrolment.

Subjects – 4,875 identifiable requests over a three-year period.

Methods – A data set of requests for ILLs of monographs over a period of three years was acquired from OCLC resource sharing statistics. This data was manually reviewed to remove duplicate records of the same request, but not multiple requests for the same item. The data included requestor status, department, publication date and subject classification of requested items.

Main Results – Differences in use across user statuses and departments were identified.

Conclusion – Usage Patterns can accurately illustrate trends in the borrowing behaviour of patrons, and be used to inform liaison librarians about user needs.