Interlibrary Loan's Efficacy in Meeting Students’ Expectations to Acquire Textbooks: Results From a Study Conducted in a Large Research Library

ILLiad, Rapid, and an unmediated solution to the interlibrary loan textbook dilemma

“…Munson and Savage distributed a survey at their own institution, Northwestern University, to "shed light on staff questions and assumptions, while allowing some room to discover previously unknown variables through the use of open feedback fields." (Munson & Savage, 2014). They learned that "the primary motivators for the [interlibrary loan textbook] requests are expense and academic need" (Munson & Savage, 2014, emphasis in original).…”

“…. [t]here is no subject heading or fixed field in a MARC record to indicate if a book is a textbook or not" (Munson & Savage 2014). If we determined that the item were a textbook, we would notify the patron that the request was cancelled, and we would return the item to the lender; if the request went unfilled, we go through the same process in the unfilled ILLiad queue; if it was judged to be a textbook request, we would cancel the request in ILLiad and notify the patron.…”

Socioeconomic Indicators Associated with First-year College Students' Use of Academic Libraries

“…For instance, first-generation students were less likely to use books and e-books, although these types of resources can help students save money if these books might have included textbooks or general books students may have purchased on their own. Some university and college libraries have begun purchasing required textbooks to place on course reserve, while others have begun fulfilling students' Interlibrary Loan requests for required textbooks in order to help students save money (Gibbs & Bowdoin, 2014;Munson & Savage, 2013).…”

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

“…be expected for mailing unless a more expedient, and therefore costly, method were used. When compared with Munson's (2013) survey results, in which students expected to receive loans within 3 to 6 days, and in the age of frequently available 2-day shipping, a 10 day turnaround seems high, however this addresses the issue of shipping only. If one considers that the standard available response time for most libraries is still 4 days, it is possible that 3 libraries just considering the request could take 10 days.…”

“…Staff also created an awareness campaign to educate users about the costs associated with ILL, with the intention of decreasing unclaimed loans. At Northwestern University, Munson and Savage (2013) looked specifically at the incidence of textbook requests. Using a combined approach, they sought to determine why students use ILL to request textbooks and whether the Northwestern ILL system could satisfy patrons in this regard.…”