ILL in a digital age – the 5th Nordic Interlending Conference

Citation

Cornish, G.P. (2003), "ILL in a digital age – the 5th Nordic Interlending Conference", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 31 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2003.12231aac.003

ILL in a digital age – the 5th Nordic Interlending Conference

ILL in a digital age – the 5th Nordic Interlending ConferenceKeywords: Interlending

Interlibrary loan (ILL) is a traditional term which has a rather archaic, almost quaint, ring about it. Yet it is alive and well in most library systems in terms of both the actual activity and the concept. To demonstrate this, some 180 library and information professionals from 15 countries met to discuss the idea for two days in Reykjavik during the annual Nordic ILL Conference. All Nordic countries were represented, except Greenland, together with representatives from the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and Europe, including the Baltic States.

The topics covered, although quite varied, maintained an overall cohesion. As a veteran of many ILL conferences I found it informative to note that some "old favourites" continue to appear on the agenda: the role of the intermediary, copyright, statistics, standards and catalogues. However, other issues increasingly occupy centre stage – such as globalisation, the end-user, licences and performance measurement.

Many years ago ILL was something that librarians did on Wednesday afternoon when patrons were either on the sports field or out of town because the shops closed for a half-day break. Although in some quarters there is a view that ILL should return to that minor position, the tenor of the conference was rather that there will always be a need for delivery of the actual physical object to the end-user and that this must not be neglected in a new technological age. In his keynote address, Graham Cornish pointed out that digitisation is not always the answer to a user's needs. The economics of what to digitise, and when, are still complex and not fully understood. Much time and effort can be spent on digitising material that few people ever require. On the other hand, digitisation of well-known documents such as Beowulf only increases demand to see the original. The parallel was drawn with pop music groups: anyone can see them on a video or TV but live concerts are usually sold out. We want to see the real thing, not just surrogates.

Essentially, however, ILL is now transformed in most people's minds into document delivery and this has become a quite different activity. Whereas ILL was basically a national activity with the use of international arrangements reserved as a last resort, document delivery knows no boundaries, nor do the users much care about them. Where a document comes from is of far less interest than how quickly and cheaply it can be delivered. The use of electronic document delivery, Web sites, Internet services and enriched databases all mean that information can be delivered to anyone, anywhere, at any time, with no attention to national boundaries. This, in turn, has an impact on the very nature of the intermediary. The library was, and is, the normal channel for interlibrary loan (by definition!) but document delivery is provided by many different agencies, some commercial and some still publicly-funded.

This led Jens Vigen of CERN (European Centre for Nuclear Research) to ask the question: what attracts clients to use your ILL service? One factor is the use of the free delivery services offered in scientific and technical research over the Web. Although patrons can achieve this for themselves it is costly in time and effort and requires sophisticated search techniques not often acquired by individual researchers. Librarians can demonstrate their support for alternative publishing and delivery methods at the same time. An extension of this has been developed in Canada – particularly at McGill University – whose subsidised unmediated ordering arrangements (SUMO) were explained by Louis Houle. Patrons are left to order their own documents and the library functions more as a control mechanism than a deliverer of documents. Access and accounts are controlled and blocks can be put on ordering documents remotely when such items are in fact available in house. SUMO is still wrestling with how to integrate this with more traditional ILL.

Interestingly, speakers from both Norway and Denmark raised the question of the future of the publisher in the academic journal world. Both gave examples of e-journals in their libraries but questioned how long the traditional licensing and subscription models could continue to survive. Indeed, they had serious doubts about the existing publisher role within the information chain. As consortia develop more general policies, it seems likely that publishers will need to re-think their licensing attitudes – and some have already done this. The development of an all-Icelandic licence covering libraries, government, industry and commerce, education and the individual in the home is a ground-breaking event which may well be followed by other small countries – Estonia and Slovenia were both represented at the conference.

Licences and consortia agreements hinge on the concept of intellectual property and the issue of copyright raised its head on several occasions. Susanna Broms from BIBSAM in the Royal Library of Sweden explained implementation of the EU Directive in Nordic countries. The topic, however, came to the forefront when different document delivery agencies made their presentations. The representative from the Germany agency, Subito, came in for a lot of close questioning as to how they deliver documents at such low cost and meet the expectations of copyright owners for payment of royalties at the same time. This was in sharp contrast to the British Library, which not only charges different scales for commercial and non-commercial delivery, but also adds a copyright fee in many cases, making their service often ten times more expensive.

Specific studies can sometimes be nothing more than "how we do it good" in our library, but they also give an insight into the real world of ILL as opposed to theoretical speculation. In the end, it is the delivery of a document to a real human being that counts, despite all the academic theorising! The National & University Library of Iceland carried out a study to assess the impact of e-journals on ILL and found that demand for journal articles declined by 16 per cent. More surprising was the finding that demand for books (i.e. real ILL) also declined by 17 per cent. No explanation for this was found. Small communities often have different needs, since the ratio of requests for books to journal articles is likely to be lower than in a populous city. This was demonstrated by a presentation on ILL in the Faroe Islands, which rely heavily on Danish libraries to meet readers' needs. Volumes of traffic are small but this does not diminish the need of individuals for access to information.

Performance measurement has been around in ILL for a long time since the IFLA Office for International Lending produced guidelines in 1987, but standards for carrying this out are now beginning to emerge. Three presentations explained the USA study (1996) the Australian study (1999) and the Nordic study in 2000. These all used similar questionnaires and statistical measures although the Nordic one was criticised for the small number of participants. ILL lends itself to statistical analysis with many facets capable of mathematical analysis. This has certainly attracted numerous researchers in this field.

Finally, where would we be without standardisation? ILL depends on the ability of one institution or person to talk to another in a way that is comprehensible to both. In the technological context this means standards. Standards are necessary for transfer of records as cataloguers well know, but it is also essential for message structure and content, as well as for responses and the transfer of information. These issues are as crucial now as when MARC records were first conceived.

But does any of this mean that ILL as a concept can survive? Perhaps we are moving away from talking about "lending" to "providing access", which is quite different. Many think that lending in an electronic world is obsolete and irrelevant. However, the idea of lending is that the owner is temporarily deprived of the use of a work while someone else has access to it. This model can now be replicated electronically by using appropriate technological mechanisms, which allow a work to be temporarily transferred from one site to another, inhibiting use by the original "owner". After an agreed time the "borrowing" library is denied further access and the original arrangements return to normal.

Librarians have always been noted for their enthusiasm to cooperate although the true benefits of this have often been questioned. Cooperation may be a "good thing", but it is often hard to demonstrate. However, with the advent of consortia, licensing, alternative publishing mechanisms and statistical data, it is now possible to demonstrate real advantages to library funders, managers and – above all – users.

Graham P. CornishCopyright Circle