Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Benchmarking Study

Citation

Line, M.B. (2002), "Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Benchmarking Study", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 212-213. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2002.30.4.212.2

This report deals with “the largest and most comprehensive study ever undertaken of ILL/DD operations in Australian libraries”. The main aims were to:

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  identify the characteristics of high performing ILL/DD operations;

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  be an instrument for raising awareness and changing ILL/DD practices; and

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  assist any library to benchmark its operations against a standard set of data.

Information was collected in 90 libraries of all types: data on transaction numbers, fill rate and costs over 12 months, on turnaround time over two months near the end of 2000, and on patron satisfaction. Participation was voluntary. The research design was based on the ARL study by Mary Jackson, “Measuring the performance of interlibrary loan operations” (which in fact included the supply of photocopies), modified to suit Australian conditions. While figures are as accurate as possible, estimates had to be made for some data, in particular, costs.

The report consists of 54 pages of text and 41 of appendices (five of them) The study was evidently very thorough; certainly the methodology is sound, and the report is competently presented (though letters and words are occasionally missing, and some of the English is rather strange). The 46 tables are mostly very clear, though some of the information could have been represented more graphically as charts. The only mild criticism I would make is that there is no breakdown by types of material requested. One would expect there to have been substantial differences between the performance for different types of book lent, e.g. English‐ and foreign‐language; slower supply and greater costs would be expected to apply to the latter.

There are no great surprises. National and state libraries have by far the highest unit costs for requesting, special libraries have the highest fill rates and fastest turnaround times, and public libraries the lowest unit costs and much the longest turnaround times. At the same time, the satisfaction with timeliness of public library patrons is at least as high as that of patrons of other types of library; this suggests that, as one would expect, their needs are less urgent and their standards lower.

No reasons are offered for the high unit costs of national/state libraries. In fact, the report makes little effort to explain any of the findings; was there a deliberate decision to let them speak for themselves? In this case, the low number of requests handled per member of staff (1,380 compared with the overall 3,742) appears to be a major factor, since staff are much the highest element in total costs. A related factor is that these libraries almost certainly handle more difficult requests. The costs of supplying are, a little surprisingly, lower than those for requesting (overall AUS$17.03 and AUS$32.10 respectively).

The turnaround times seem to me too long to be acceptable: the lowest average times are 8.7 days for requesting in special libraries and 5.3 days for supplying in university libraries – though it should be noted that it was the number of calendar days, not working days, that was counted. A detailed breakdown of turnaround times gives 2.4 days as the average time for public libraries to process requests and no less than 13.7 days to supply items. It seems clear that libraries give requests from other libraries a much lower priority than requests from their own users (who would hardly be happy with such a service). Interestingly, commercial document suppliers were slower than libraries. Yet overall patron satisfaction with timeliness is 97 per cent: it is not only public library patrons who seem to have low expectations.

One factor that may help to account for slow speeds of requesting is that libraries have several union catalogues they can use to identify holdings. The use of union catalogues is associated with high performing libraries, we are told, but why not aim for one union catalogue in Australia rather than several?

Of most interest perhaps are the characteristics of high‐performing libraries identified in the report.

High‐performing requesting libraries had the following characteristics:

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  patrons could request items electronically;

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  they minimised the time a request was handled by their staff … ;

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  a union catalogue (or catalogues) were used to identify sources of supply;

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  items were requested electronically for supplying libraries wherever possible; and

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  more than 80 per cent of filled requests were filled by the first supplier.

High‐performing supplying libraries had the following characteristics:

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  a majority of requests were received electronically … ;

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  a large proportion of their collection was reported on a union catalogue;

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  an automated ILL system was used for receiving and tracking requests; and

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  a high percentage of requests were supplied through reciprocal agreements.

The recommendations are fairly obvious. To summarise:

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  Libraries should examine their workflows.

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  Automation should be applied in requesting and, where possible, in supplying.

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  Staff should be trained.

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  Holdings on union catalogues should be accurate and up‐to‐date.

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  Cooperative agreements can be effective.

To these I would add:

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  Aim at one integrated national union catalogue.

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  Design a model workflow that libraries can adopt.

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  Set higher standards.

I would like to add “shake patrons out of their complacency”. Once patrons of two or three libraries were exposed to a really good service, one hopes that there would be a gradual general rise in expectations and a better service would then be demanded.

Meanwhile, this report is worth reading by anyone involved in or concerned with interlending and document supply.