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16 Trends L. Libr. Mgmt. & Tech. 1 (2005)

handle is hein.journals/ttllmt16 and id is 1 raw text is: 2005 Vol. 16 No. 1 DX /J IN LAW LIBRARY MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY Edited by Philip C. Berwick + For academic, firm, corporate, and government law librarians The Role of ILL and Document Delivery in Today's Libraries By MERLEJ. SLYHOFF, University of Pennsylvania In an era of computers, online information, PDFs, and databases, many people question the necessity of the .library. As librarians we have for years defended the value, need and crucial role of the library, and more importantly, the librarian. There are components of the library operation , however, that are now coming under scrutiny with their very value being questioned. One such area is interlibrary loan/document delivery. For those patrons and administrators who and administrators who think everything is available on the computer, what is the role of interlibrary loan/document delivery? Interlibrary Loan/document delivery continues to play a vital role in libraries. It is important however, to recog- nize that libraries need to adapt their more traditional interlibrary loan/document delivery operations to meet the demands of their patrons. These demands, fortunately, can often be met with the use of new technologies and services. First, let's define document delivery. If you ask six people to define this phrase you could get six definitions: interlibrary loan (ILL), purchasing documents from a commercial supplier, providing patrons with material not owned by the library, delivery in any format of library materials to the patron, etc. Document delivery is not a phrase that's easily defined, as libraries attach their own meaning. For the purposes of this article, document delivery will include any library service that enables the patron to obtain materials (books and articles) not avail- able from the library's collection, whether that collection is paper or electronic. This includes traditional ILL, unmediated or user-initiated document delivery, and commercial document suppliers. As you will see in the case study later in this article, some libraries include other services within their document delivery departments. Those additional services, however, are not usually the document delivery components that are being questioned. The Role of Interlibrary Loan No matter what definition you use or what services you include in document delivery services, a common element is the timely delivery of material to the patron. It is, and has always been, impossible for a single library to own every title that your patrons will request. Interlibrary loan has enabled libraries to access materials from another library's collection, whether that library is across town, across the country, or on another continent. Traditional ILL has involved identifying what the patron needs, locating it in another library's collection, sending the request, receiving the material from the lending library, and when necessary, returning the material when the patron has completed working with it. With traditional ILL, copies (or nonreturnables) usually offer the fastest delivery via fax, Ariel, and desktop delivery. However it may still take 5-10 days, and some- times longer, to get a copy of an article. The requesting library is at the mercy of the supplying library. Their copy of a journal may be off the shelf or the supplying library may be short-staffed and unable to fill the request quickly. continued on page 2 2005

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