Editorial

Citation

McGrath, M. (2003), "Editorial", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 31 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2003.12231baa.001

Editorial

In this issue

Another bumper issue of ILDS! Talk of the demise of document supply is much exaggerated. Probably we should not even call it document supply after you have read the piece by Line. Please tell us what you think of it. Rowse, of Ingenta, gives us his thoughts on the changing world of information provision. In his second of two papers, Baker develops his ideas on document delivery in the UK higher education context, bringing to bear his immense experience in the development of the JISC eLib programme. Schopfel describes developments at INIST from an insider's perspective and notes the impact on document delivery from the "big deals". The paper by Gatenby, on EUCAT, the new service provided by the new alliance of PICA and OCLC, will be of particular interest to European readers. Developments for remote users in New Zealand from the national library perspective are covered by McDonald and Bolland. A new Web-based document delivery system for Italy is described by Arte, Maggi, Menichelli and Di Cintio, and a rare insight into resource sharing in Nigeria is given by Omekwu. Allen, Ward, Wray and Debus-Lopez describe a project, that has now been successfully implemented, to purchase monographs rather than use ILL in two universities and a public library system in the USA.

We continue our series on national libraries with pieces from Wales, Russia, Austria and Switzerland. McGrath writes a shorter than usual literature review based on the reading of more than 100 journals at the BLDSC. Lack of space means that the Miscellany has had to be held over; do you find this feature useful? Do let me know at mike.mcgrath@britishlibrary.net

In the next issue

Van Borm describes the sophisticated document delivery environment in Belgium. Watkins writes on the delayed EU directive on copyright and its implications for document delivery. Mark contrasts the situation in document delivery globally now and with 30 years ago. The controversial but excellent document delivery service from SUBITO is assessed by Rosemann, Director of TIB Hanover. Resource sharing in Ireland is dealt with by McDermott, Director of the Irish Library Association. The very relevant impact of e-journals on document delivery is evaluated by Robertson, based on a UK questionnaire. Krym updates us on developments at CISTI, and finally the still prolific Line provides a typically thoughtful piece on the future of e-books.

Mike McGrath