Editorial

Citation

McGrath, M. (2015), "Editorial", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 43 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILDS-03-2015-0010

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Interlending & Document Supply, Volume 43, Issue 2

Perhaps the most significant development in recent months has been the acceptance that open access has become inevitable. Along with that acceptance have come a number of tensions and conflicts. A major issue is the additional costs of funding gold open access – namely, article processing charges (APCs) and subscriptions that refuse to reduce. This is becoming a particular problem in the UK which is more advanced down the gold road than any other country and is also suffering from massive cuts in public expenditure. This problem is occurring because publishers are succeeding in taking control of the open access process – in the USA via Chorus and in the UK via Finch – more on that in the literature review written as usual by Mike McGrath. As open access grows in importance, Illinois librarians are dealing with more and more requests that are freely available online – if you know how to find them – so we carry an article describing how one US university deals systematically with such requests. Also, on open access, an update of an earlier study of the response of five national centres to the development of open access in relation to grey literature.

In this issue, we also cover an important example of public library and university cooperation in the west of England to make their collections accessible to each other’s audiences. This sort of cooperation is common in the USA but not so much in other countries. However, technology now provides the opportunity to integrate services in ways that were not previously possible, so why not prove us wrong and submit articles with similar tales to tell. A study of a research university in Saudi Arabia sheds some light on a country not much covered in the library and information science literature, and from China the experience of using the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses full text database is described and analysed – conclusion? Expensive but good value for money. From South Africa, we have an overview of the state of Illinois in that country. Also, a rare example (at least in the UK) of a university seeing an increase in Illinois with an analysis of the factors involved. In addition, finally, a study from Sweden describing how systems automating the local document supply process can be integrated with systems automating regional document requesting (interlending). A vital link that often fails, but hopefully this article will help solve the problems.

There’s something for everyone in this issue!

Mike McGrath