Levine-Clark, Michael and Lenny Allen, “Whither ILL? Wither ILL: The Changing Nature of Resource Sharing in an Age of Digital Content,” Northwest Interlibrary Loan and Resource Sharing Conference, Portland, OR, September 13, 2013.

1. Whither ILL? Wither ILL: The Changing
Nature of Resource Sharing in an Age
of Electronic Content
Northwest Interlibrary Loan and Resource
Sharing Conference
Portland, Oregon
September 13, 2013
Michael Levine-Clark, University of Denver
Lenny Allen, Oxford University Press

2. ILL is a vitally important library service!
YES!
We must have the right to loan our ebooks to
another library!
NO!

3. End vs. Means
• Goal should be to get our users access to the
broadest possible collection, as fast as
possible, to respond to curricular and research
needs
• ILL solves that goal for tangible items
• There are better options for digital resources

4. Collection Building in the Print World
• You snooze, you lose
– Books go out of print, so
crucial to buy at point of
publication
• Approval plans
• Speculative purchasing
– High publishing output
– Low budgets
– Low use
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alancleaver/4293345629/

5. Annual Book Production
0
200000
400000
600000
800000
1000000
1200000
DU
Purchases
North
Am
erican
Scholarly
AllUnited
States
W
orld
(UNESCO)
USSelf-Published

6. Books Cataloged 2000-2004
(126,953 Titles)
4+ uses, 18.8%
3 uses, 8.2%
2 uses, 12.8%
1 use, 20.6%
0 uses, 39.6%

7. ILL in the Print World
• Solves multiple problems
– Can’t buy everything
– Books go out of print
– We don’t know what our users will need
– Often the book my user needs is sitting unused on
another library’s shelves
– ILL is convenient, fast, reliable
– ILL is often the only way to get a book
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emdot/502476008/

8. Process from the User’s Perspective
1. Identify the book
2. Search the catalog (not available)
3. Request via ILL
4. Wait a while (hopefully not too long)
5. Receive a notification that it’s arrived
6. Go to the library to check the book out
7. (Perhaps) renew the book
8. Go to the library to return the book

9. Process for the Borrowing library
1. Receive request
2. Verify in local catalog
3. Search, request
4. Wait
5. Receive the book from another library
6. Notify student
7. Wait
8. Return book to the lending library

10. Process for the Lending Library
1. Receive the request
2. Check for location, availability
3. Pull the book, check it out
4. Pack the book and mail it
5. Wait
6. Receive the book (hopefully)
7. Unpack, check back in
8. Return the book to the shelf

11. Problems with the Current Model
• From the student’s perspective
– Need to wait
– (may not be intuitive)
• From the libraries’ perspective
– Expensive
• Staff time
• Mailing costs
• ILL fees
• From the lending library’s perspective
– Book is now unavailable for local users

12. Still the Best Model for Print
• Relatively fast
• Relatively reliable
• Relatively efficient
• Relatively cheap
• Solves those problems
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bowena/2632507358/

13. ILL For E-Resources?
1. Identify the e-book
2. Search the catalog (not
available)
3. Request via ILL
4. Wait a while (hopefully
not too long)
5. Receive a link (or PDF)
6. Perhaps link expires
http://www.flickr.com/photos/teddo/120756115/

14. ILL for E-Resources (Library Process)
Borrowing Library
1. Receive request from
student
2. Verify in local catalog
3. Search, request
4. Wait
5. Receive a link or PDF from
another library
6. Notify student
Lending Library
1. Receive request from
borrowing library
2. Check rights for ILL
3. Send a PDF or link, perhaps
also turning off access
locally

15. What’s Wrong with that Picture?
• Student has to wait
• Work for ILL staff in two
libraries
• Students at lending
library may lose access
• All of that makes sense
for tangible items, but
not for e-resources
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kareneliot/2
710464400/

16. The Ideal
• Immediate access
– Student has what they
need while the project is
still fresh
• Low cost (or at least
lower cost)
• Unmediated (or at least
minimally mediated)
• On the platform that
makes sense
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlibrary/7958951352/

17. Toward a Model
• Short-term loan
• Via e-book aggregator(s)
• Via publisher platform(s)
• Via a third party (OCLC)
• Via library discovery tools
Low cost, brief access
Infrastructure exists
Multiple places to go
Even more places to go
Even more content
Ideal for widest content,
easiest workflow
Unmediated, intuitive

18. Short-Term Loan (STL)
• Offered already by major aggregators
– EBL, ebrary, EBSCO
• Variable length
– One day to one month
• Fraction of list price
• Only requires licensing
• Limited to certain titles
• Requires working with many vendors

19. Third Party
• Need to have STL capability built into system
across multiple vendors/publishers
• Would still require licensing
• Single source
– One search
– One invoice
– One workflow
• Mediated

20. STL Via Library Discovery Interface
• Unmediated
– Immediate access
• Requires library to load records for vast
numbers of titles
– Financial risk?
– Is this collection development?
• Isn’t this the logical end point of Demand-
driven acquisition?

21. A Hypothesis
• Any given student can only use n books (or other
resources) in a given year
• Libraries can provide more and more books and
see increased use, but at some point they will
surpass the number of books (or other
resources) their students can use
• If the budget will cover n books per student,
then a library can provide an infinite number of
titles via STL without ever being in danger of
overspending.

22. Articles!
• Same principles apply
– Immediate access
– Price point
– Workflow
– Discovery

23. Buy In
• Librarians
– Collection development vs ILL is a meaningless
(and confusing) distinction
– ILL is a wonderful process – but not the ideal
solution given evolving access models
• Publishers
– Make ALL content available via an STL model
– Through a third party
– At affordable prices

24. We Should be Demanding
• That publishers provide STL capabilities for all
books and articles
– At costs equal to or cheaper than ILL costs
• That there be easy methods for integrating
these into our discovery tools (unmediated) or
a third-party system (mediated)
• That our users always get what they need,
immediately (or very close to it)

25. ILL in an Age of Electronic Content
A Publisher Perspective
25
• What we hear from libraries:
– Make everything available via DDA
• Budgets are tight
• Instant access, (virtually) seamless user experience – when
unmediated
• Only pay for content that is actually used
• So if there is proven user demand, we’ll pay for it

26. ILL in an Age of Electronic Content
A Publisher Perspective
26
• What we also hear from libraries
– Allow for ebooks to be shared via existing ILL process
– But ebook ILL clearly presents certain challenges for
publishers
– And doesn’t ILL represent a very specific form of
user demand?

27. 27
• STL could make digital ILL sustainable for both publishers and libraries
– Publishers receive revenue for content that has shown clear demand
by the end user.
– The library is able to provide instant access to the patron requesting
the content at lower cost than traditional print ILL
– End user receives content they want at the moment of need
– Allows for a shift in cost to ownership when demand is repeated
– Allows for a shift in revenue from shipping to the Academy
Short Term LoanShort Term Loan
A Potential Win Win Solution?

28. Sustainability
28
• Scholarly publishing is at a critical juncture
• How do we remain viable businesses even as we:
– Maintain a massive print infrastructure
– Develop and evolve an efficient ebook supply chain
• File conversion
• File warehousing
• File delivery
• Metadata

29. STL: Future Considerations
29
• Still very early days for ebooks and ebook sales models
• And still relatively early for ebook sales data as PA, DDA, or
STL
• Do we have the right parameters in place for STL?
• Do we have the right pricing models in place?
• How many loans should trigger actual purchase?

30. Thank You
Michael Levine-Clark
michael.levine-clark@du.edu
Lenny Allen
lenny.allen@oup.com