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This paper surveys interlending in the countries that comprise the consortium of National Libraries and Documentation Centres — South‐East Asia, ie Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. A questionnaire survey revealed that the volume of interlending varied greatly between these countries and was generally low. The number of interlibrary loan requests sent abroad was far greater than the number received. Only a minority of libraries had telephone and Telex links, but many had reprographic equipment. Requests were sent mainly to subject specialist libraries, and union catalogues and central collections were less used. Charges were minimal. The importance of maintaining national and international statistics is stressed. This is one function of national interlending centres, which should be established as independent units in all countries.

As document supply grows in volume and importance it becomes more necessary to measure its performance. Nearly all measures are relative — over time, across countries, and between systems; they should therefore be consistent and comparable. The main measures are: fill rate (broken down by subject, form and date); speed (broken down into the various processes involved in document supply); user satisfaction (because users' needs may not be articulated); and costs. There may be trade‐offs between different measures (eg speed and costs). Any measurement system must be practical. Most data will be collected by sampling, but well designed automated systems in future should enable better measures to be calculated with less effort.