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Dissertation Information for Sarah Katharine Thomson

NAME:
- Sarah Katharine Thomson

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science

SCHOOL:
- Columbia University (USA) (1967)

ADVISORS:
- Oliver L. Lilley

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- [Indecipherable1]
- [Indecipherable2]
- [Indecipherable3]

MPACT Status: Complete - Except Indecipherables

Title: General interlibrary loan services in major academic libraries in the United States

Abstract: The general interlibrary lending services of major academic libraries in the

United States, the characteristics of the interlibrary loan
requests that they receive and send,and the factors that contribute to
the successor failure of these requests were studied.

Data were gathered through a sample of interlibrary loan requests
and through questionnaires on policy, practices, and attitudes of interlibrary
loan librarians. A skip-interval sample was analyzed of 5895
interlibrary loan requests sent during a year to 8 randomly selected
university libraries: California at Berkeley; Colorado, Columbia, Florida,
Harvard, Illinois, Johns Hopkins, and Ohio State. Excluded. were telephone
requests; requests handled directly by departmental llbraries, such
as law or medicine; and requests from libraries located outside
the United States.
Two questionnaires were administered: (1) to all 63 academic
libraries that reported lending 2000 volumes or more in 1963-64; 59
libraries responded; and (2) to 321 randomly selected other libraries
represented in the, sample of 5895 requests; 291 libraries responded.

Most academic libraries did little or no interlibrary borrowing or lending. Only 163 libraries transacted four-fifths of the interlibrary loans involoving academic libraries. Over half the loans occured between libraries located in the same state of bordering states.

About 56% of the requests were filled by lending the library's materials, 8% by sending photocopies in lieu of loan, 11% were non-circulating, 10% were in use, at the bindery, missing or otherwise not available, and 15% were not owned by the lending library.

Even when the requirements of the General Interlibrary Loan Code were interpreted as liberally as possiblem scarcely 68% of the requests met minimum citation requirements. Only 81% of the requests contained accurate citations. Furthermore, less than 58% were accurate and contained at least the minimum citation components required by the Code.

More than one-third of the requests did not include a verification or source of reference. A Ccheck of 404 unverified requests indicated that, except for high schools, libraries of all types and sizes could probably have verified at least half their unverified interlibrary loan requests. Of 5895 requests, the 8 request-sample-recipient lending libraries verified more than one-fourth that could not be located in their card catalogs as cited in the requests, corrected the entries, and as a result, increased the number of items lent by 15%.

Significant differences were observed between the 8 request- sample-recipient lending libraries in circulation and ownership of books, and especially in circulation of serials and dissertations. Variation in policies of lending libraries on circulation of serials and disertations, automatic substitution of photocopy, and verification of citations not found in card catalogs as cited in the requests produced significant variations in percentages of requests filled.

Four practices of borrowing libraries were found to be significantly related to the percentage of interlibrary loan requests filled: requesting photocopy, sending accurate citations, verifying requests, and finding out in advance what library owned the item wanted. Non-ownership accounted for two-fifths of the failure of interlibrary loan requests, while accuracy and verification accounted for only about 1% of the variability in outcome because of the work done by the lending libraries in correcting and augmenting inadequate citations.

Reccomendations are included which would increase the percentage of interlibrary loan requests that are filled and decrease the expenditure of time in the lending library. To reduce the requests reported not owned, the study recommends that the General Interlibrary Loan Code urge borrowing libraries to attempt to determine ownership before sending requests. To reduce the requests fro items that are non-circulating, a directory of major libraries indicating their interlibrary lending services and policies, especially with regard to lending serials and dissertations and automatically substituting photocopy, is proposed.

MPACT Scores for Sarah Katharine Thomson

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-04-07 20:40:45

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