In this issue

Citation

(2004), "In this issue", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 32 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2004.12232caa.001

In this issue

In this issue

Keywords: Document delivery

So who says that document supply is a dying trade? ILDS is receiving so many papers, both commissioned and unsolicited, that painful decisions have had to be made for this issue. The most important, and the one that affects the editor most, is that the Literature Review is being held over to the next issue. It will cover six months instead of the now normal three.

This issue has a good global spread with authors writing from and about Canada, UK, USA, Greece, Belgium and Russia.

Three papers are revised versions of papers given at the highly successful conference on inter- lending and document supply in Canberra and the co-operation of IFLA is gratefully acknowledged. Two explore disintermediation: the first, Borrow Direct by Nitecki and Jones, is described by the title. The second, Unmediated is the message by Cheung and Patrick describes three enhancements at Ryerson University in Canada, all of which are designed to empower the end user. The third is by the well known, Julian Van Borm, newly promoted to Director of Libraries at the University of Antwerp. Julian describes a co-operative project on interlending and document ordering with three university libraries in St Petersburg.

Mary Jackson appears twice. Her now regular column gives us a preview of the ILL/DD study that she has conducted with others in the USA and also an article which looks more specifically at document access in the USA, contrasting it with an article written for ILDS 25 years ago. She concludes that “a single, long term solution is not possible to the document access challenge”.

We carry a rare insight into the situation in Greece by Tsimpoglou Filippos writing on the interlibrary loan network in that country.

Frances Hendrix is well known in her role as the Director of LASER – the largest of the library resource sharing networks in the UK. She is also known for her outspoken views in a profession that often errs on the side of caution and blandness. She looks at the development of resource sharing in the UK and some of the missed opportunities. ILDS expects some vigorous replies! Although controversial we feel that the article raises important issues. The Combined Regions and TALIS have accepted a suggestion to write for a subsequent issue.

Ed Pentz brings us up to date with developments at CrossRef – that interesting model for document access and supply which is rapidly expanding. John McMillan gives an insight into the search habits of a researcher which should be of interest to all of us who are concerned to ensure that our users receive the best possible service.

Finally Andrew Braid from the British Library illuminates the tricky subject of digital rights management and how the BL is tackling it.

In the next issue we will be carrying articles on the analysis of use data, on e-books, on how one region in the UK is developing access to the citizen, developments at the British Library, the experience of the University of Newfoundland in using CISTI, reasons for the decline in document supply in the UK and developments in the university and college sector in Israel. So we hope there will be plenty to think about and learn from!