Lorna the Librarian

Primary Research Group has published Higher Education Interlibrary Loan
Management Benchmarks, 2013 Edition, ISBN 157440-216-1

The 165 page study is based on data from detailed responses from more than 65
colleges and universities, covering interlibrary loan response times, shipping
costs, means and form of fulfilment, Ill staffing and budgeting, workload and
trends in number of transactions, policies on non-traditional items, use of
digital repositories, automation and many other issues in higher education
interlibrary loan management.    The report gives highly specific information in
a myriad of areas allowing end users to compare their Interlibrary loan efforts
with those of peer institutions.

Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:

•    Over the past three years, traditional interlibrary loan services
transactions in college libraries in the sample have increased by a cumulative
3-year mean of 17.94%.
•    The mean turnaround time for article borrowing requests among libraries
in the sample is 2.99 days.
•    53.85% of research universities and deliver documents in electronic
form unless otherwise specified by the borrower.
•    13.24% of survey participants say that interlibrary loan at their
college is under the auspices of the reference department.
•    39.71% of libraries in the sample use Ariel for document delivery.
•    Research universities in the sample employ a mean of 5.3 students in
their interlibrary loan efforts.
•    Public colleges in the sample have a mean turnaround time of 7.37 days
for video borrowing requests.
•    22.22% of community college libraries and 27.27% of 4-year college
libraries offer interlibrary loan for state-adopted textbooks.
•    Shipping and courier fees related to interlibrary loan have cost
colleges in the sample a mean of $11,254 in the past year.

For further information view the website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.

Taken from ACRL Science & Technology Section Discussion List