Feasibility of Analyzing Interlibrary Loan Requests to Determine Instruction Needs

Abstract

The Interlibrary Loan department at the University of Mississippi wished to examine interlibrary loan borrowing data dating back to the implementation of the ILLiad system in August 2001 in order to determine why the number of cancellations due to local availability continues to increase. The patron information was extracted in an attempt to determine whether library instruction should be targeted to patrons according to status, department, database, or frequency of ILL use. All 88,376 article and loan requests from 3,975 users were examined for similarities among request cancellations. The authors found that the fastest-growing reason for cancellation of an ILL request is availability in the stacks. The surge began soon after several subscriptions were converted from paper to electronic format. That, plus fill rate data according to the citation source, suggests that the design of certain databases can be a strong indicator of whether a patron will venture beyond an originating database or submit an interlibrary loan, assuming their request is not owned locally.

Change your Service Policies Based on your Data

“…After the study, they changed their retrieval methods and verification techniques, they saw an improvement in their lending fill rates. Murphey and Greenwood (2009) reviewed all of their 88,376 interlibrary loan requests since 2001 and discovered that the "fastest-growing reason for cancellation of an ILL request is availability in the stacks." They identified the root of the problem and determined instruction needs to mitigate the phenomenon.…”

Developing a Data Narrative: Analyzing Trends in an Academic Interlibrary Loan Department

“…Knowlton et al (2015), Kress et al (2011), and Murphy and Greenwood (2009) are all excellent examples of the need to understand how and why patrons interact with interlibrary loan. In the case of Albertsons Library, another consideration in the decline of borrowing requests was whether the same number of users were requesting fewer materials.…”

“…Though researchers consistently concluded that canceling journal packages does not negatively impact ILL, (Calvert et al, 2013 p.186;Knowlton et al, 2015, p.11) it is an important topic to revisit as reliance on electronic resources continues to grow. Where these studies used a combination of existing and study-generated data, Murphy and Greenwood (2009) described their efforts to use only available data to understand increases in cancellations due to the item being held locally. They identified that graduate students comprised half of all items requested, but also accounted for half of all cancelations (p.369).…”

Interlibrary Loan Requests for Locally Available Materials: WorldCat Local’s Impact

“…This article also discusses the idea that increases in electronic subscriptions lead to more users believing all available items must be online, another contributing factor to the reasons users might be placing requests for items held in print. 9 Most recently, a study (2010) of ILL request cancellations at Florida Gulf Coast University during fiscal year [2008][2009] found that 18 percent of ILL borrowing requests were canceled; of those, 32 percent of the cancellations were made because the requested material was locally available. The most common format for these canceled requests was print, and Reycraft notes that the ubiquity of digital formats and the increase of library users considered "digital natives" contributes to a lack of awareness of bound journals and microforms.…”