Global Resource Sharing

By Linda Frederiksen, Margaret Bean and Heidi Nance

Written from a global perspective, this book reviews sharing of library resources on a global scale. With expanded discovery tools and massive digitization projects, the rich and extensive holdings of the world’s libraries are more visible now than at any time in the past. Advanced communication and transmission technologies, along with improved international standards, present a means for the sharing of library resources around the globe. Despite these significant improvements, a number of challenges remain. Global Resource Sharing provides librarians and library managers with a comprehensive background in and summary of the issues involved in global resource sharing.

• Analyses current and future environments for international resource sharing, including past research and discussions
• Provides an international perspective on a global library issue
• Includes examples of successful and innovative global resource sharing initiatives

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Nov 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781780632889

Linda Frederiksen

Linda Frederiksen is the Head of Access Services at Washington State University Vancouver, where she previously held the position of Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Librarian. Linda received a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and French from Central Washington University. Before receiving a Master of Library Science degree from Emporia State University in Kansas, Linda worked in both public and academic libraries. She is active in local, regional and national organizations, projects and initiatives advancing resource sharing and equitable access to information. She is the co-author of Global Resource Sharing and the author of The Copyright Librarian. She holds a Post-Master’s Certificate in Copyright Management and Leadership from the University of Maryland Center for Intellectual Property.

Book preview

Chandos Information Professional Series

Global Resource Sharing

Linda Frederiksen

Margaret Bean

Heidi Nance

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

List of figures and tables

Acknowledgements

About the authors

Chapter 1: An introduction to global resource sharing

Abstract:

Overview

Intent and design of the book

Chapter 2: A brief history of international interlibrary lending and document supply

Abstract:

Introduction

‘We should develop some system’

Underlying principles and reasonable rules

Document delivery – Part I

Discover, locate, request, deliver

Document delivery – Part II

The last mile

Highlights

Chapter 3: PEST and SWOT analysis of international interlibrary loan

Abstract:

Introduction

PEST analysis of international interlibrary loan

SWOT analysis of international interlibrary loan

Summary

Chapter 4: An overview of current practices

Abstract:

Introduction

The requesting process

Locating a lender

National, international and local catalogs

The shipping process

Fees and payments

Statistics

Issues and challenges

Summary

Useful resources

Chapter 5: Case studies in global resource sharing

Abstract:

Introduction

Participation in global resource sharing – survey responses

Chapter 6: Selected case studies

Abstract:

Introduction

Web resources

Chapter 7: The future of global resource sharing

Abstract:

Introduction

Trends

Scenarios

Summary

Appendix: Case Studies Survey

Glossary/Acronyms

Bibliography

Index

Copyright

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First published in 2012

ISBN: 978-1-84334-625-8 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-78063-288-9 (online)

© L. Frederiksen, M. Bean and H. Nance, 2012

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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List of figures and tables

Figures

2.1. Interlibrary Loan Request Form No. 485, Gaylord Bros. Inc. 22

4.1. Resource sharing cycle 63

4.2. Spheres of discovery and retrieval 65

4.3. A German virtual catalog: the Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog (KVK) 68

4.4. ShareILL 69

4.5. IFLA vouchers 78

5.1. Number and location of countries 93

5.2. Library types 94

5.3. Barriers to international sharing of library resources 97

Tables

3.1. PEST and SWOT worksheet 37

3.2. Modified SWOT analysis diagram 50

4.1. IFLA response codes 79

5.1. Additional countries 94

7.1. Other trends as identified in Interlending & Document Supply 2005–2010 146

Acknowledgements

We want to acknowledge and thank the individuals working in libraries and information centers all over the world who do the daily work of international interlibrary loan (ILL). From translating messages to verifying citations, from indexing materials to loading and updating holdings records into catalogs and databases, from responding to requests for scanning or mailing library materials to borrowers without their tireless efforts, global resource sharing could not succeed. In addition, we would like to thank the librarians and library staff members who responded to our survey and provided us with additional detail on their own practices and procedures. A nod of appreciation also goes out to John Helmer, Executive Director and Anya Arnold, Resource Sharing Program Manager, Orbis Cascade Alliance; to Heghine Hakobyan, Slavic Librarian, University of Oregon; and to CJ de Jong, Access Services Coordinator, University of Alberta, for taking the time to discuss resource sharing in consortia, library services in the former Soviet Union, and the intricacies of Canadian copyright with us.

About the authors

Linda Frederiksen is the Head of Access Services at Washington State University Vancouver. Linda received her Bachelor of Arts in History and French from Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. Before receiving her Master of Library Science degree from Emporia State University in Kansas, Linda worked in both public and academic libraries. She is active in local, regional and national interlibrary loan, document delivery and resource sharing projects.

Margaret Bean is Head, Sciences Libraries at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. She is the former University of Oregon Resource Sharing Librarian. Prior to her work at the University of Oregon, Margaret was an engineering librarian at the University of Michigan and for two Detroit, Michigan, automotive suppliers. Margaret received her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and her Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Scripps College in Claremont, California. Her interlibrary loan-related interests include education and training, collaborative endeavors, and purchase on demand.

Heidi Nance is the Head of Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services at the University of Washington Libraries in Seattle, Washington. Prior to her work at the University of Washington, Heidi supervised the Interlibrary Loan office at Seattle Pacific University, and interned in the Image/Photo Library at Callison Architecture. Heidi received her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Washington in 2007 and her Bachelor of Arts in English from Seattle Pacific University in 2001. Her interests include consortial borrowing and collection development, increasing library access for distance students, and econtent.

1

An introduction to global resource sharing

Abstract:

In this chapter, a definition for the term ‘global resource sharing’ is given. An introduction to the major themes and organization of the book, as well as its intent and design, are provided.

Key words

global resource sharing

international interlibrary loan

interlending

access to information

libraries

Overview

Global resource sharing is an idea whose time has come. Of interest to librarians around the world, the capacity to borrow and lend materials across air, land and sea appears to be more within reach today than at any time in the recent and more distant past. Cooperation and interdependence, at least amongst libraries, has created an environment whereby national borders seem far less important than the need to share information. Although a true world library does not yet exist, the foundations for such a structure have been and are continuing to be built. As an increasing number of library records and holdings become visible to information seekers, the discovery of information appears to be nearly effortless. At the same time, technologies that automate request and transmission functions have also improved significantly, removing many of the obstacles that limited access to information in the past.

Before going any further, let us begin with a definition for the phrase ‘global resource sharing’. For libraries and other information agencies, the expression can have different meanings and connotations. In a broad context, it frequently suggests both cooperative collection development and interlibrary loan. For the purposes of this book, the term will more specifically be used when referring to the second critical element of resource sharing: interlibrary lending. Throughout this book the terms resource sharing, interlibrary loan, ILL, document supply, interlending, document delivery and information delivery service (IDS) will be used interchangeably. As was pointed out more than 15 years ago, interlending is generally neither just a loan nor only between libraries (Baker and Jackson, 1995). For ease of reference and variety in writing, however, when the authors use the terms global resource sharing and the related international interlibrary loan and document supply, we are referring to the transfer of materials, in a variety of format types, among libraries and other suppliers in response to users’ needs, regardless of where the library, information supplier or user is located.

Why global resource sharing? Why now? The idea and practice of sharing materials is certainly not a new or radical one for libraries to consider. These institutions have always known that no library could or would own every item ever published. Even before the massive, comprehensive collections of the world’s great libraries were built and far ahead of the publication explosion of the late 20th century, the notion of sharing materials when ownership was not an option was discussed. For many years, the mechanisms to do this were excessively slow and expensive to negotiate. Early attempts at interlibrary lending, both domestic and foreign, were frequently and sometimes spectacularly unsuccessful. It was simply faster, easier and cheaper for a library to purchase what it could for its own collection or to advise individual scholars to travel to the physical location where material was held. During this time, interlibrary borrowing and lending was very much a ‘back room’ operation, a supplementary and nearly invisible service, intended for and used by only the most serious researchers.

Several factors, beginning in the 1970s and continuing today, resulted in a drastic modification in the theory and practice of resource sharing and library service, not only in the United States but around the globe. The increase in publication worldwide, dramatically rising costs especially for serials, and radically reduced acquisitions budgets all worked to bring ILL, a previously auxiliary library service under the ownership model, to the forefront. By providing a means to access materials that libraries were no longer able to afford to purchase for their own collections, the information and research expectations of their primary clientele could be met.

Both the problem of access and its solution appeared to arrive nearly simultaneously. Declining budgets necessitated access as a replacement for ownership as the dominant model for library collections and services at the same time as supporting and enabling technologies came along to make that possible. National and regional union catalogs, union lists of serials, MARC catalog records, bibliographic utilities and databases made discovery of information in non-affiliated collections less painless. Telecommunication and duplication tools also made request and retrieval simpler.

Later technological improvements, including the development of online catalogs, the Internet and the World Wide Web, desktop computers, document scanners, and transmission systems such as email and Ariel, and specialized ILL software, along with increased expectations by information seekers, further pushed interlending into a vanguard position for fulfilling patron requests when the local collection could not. Resource sharing in general and international ILL in particular, became less a series of unrelated, manually negotiated steps in an intricate dance between requestor and potential lender and more an increasingly automated process from discovery to delivery.

Even with this revolutionary shift in philosophy and technology, finding library materials in other collections was still neither simple nor easy. Nearly a decade ago, Mary Jackson listed these major challenges to international resource sharing:

how libraries discover holdings and the format of those holdings; how ILL staff determine whether a library will lend internationally; the method of sending and receiving ILL requests in a format that is readable and understandable to both parties; the high cost of physical delivery and lack of universal electronic delivery; and finally, the difficulties with payment and the high costs of exchange currencies. (Jackson, 2004: 91)

Nearly ten years later, this picture has changed. Today, information seekers all over the world are able to search for and discover information on any subject from a single web-based interface. The OCLC product WorldCat currently contains billions of title and holdings records, in more than 480 language sets. Mass digitization projects by national libraries, universities, consortia, and commercial agencies further broaden the depth and breadth of information that is visible to anyone with an Internet connection. This abundance and awareness of the riches the world’s libraries have to offer has also amplified demand for access to those materials. For the information seeker who has discovered a document from the convenience and ease of his or her own web browser, the physical location of the source has little importance.

Even with massive catalog and holding record loads, enormous digitization efforts, wider acceptance or adoption of international standards, work practices and communication and transmission technologies, not all the problems of global access to information have been resolved. Despite the impression of increased interoperability and interconnectness; despite improved telecommunication and transmission technologies that have eradicated some of the barriers of distance and time, retrieval and delivery of requested international materials remains a significant problem for libraries worldwide. As David Atkins (2010: 72) has pointed out, for most libraries, ‘the ease of discovery belies the difficulty of delivery.’ The problems of discoverability have been replaced by the far more significant ones of retrieval and delivery.

Other issues, many of them longstanding, continue to plague international efforts to share library resources and collections. The not inconsequential costs of the service, language differences, copyright issues, lack of a cooperative tradition, inadequate collections, poor funding support, institutional reluctance or resistance, complicated workflow and insufficient staffing levels, incompatible technologies and declining budgets are just a few of the hurdles that face both new and seasoned librarians interested in global resource sharing.

International interlibrary loan has come a long way since the first early attempts to share library material across geographic and political boundaries. Over the course of the past few years,