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The results of a sample survey of requests processed by the BLLD were compared with those from a similar survey carried out in 1974. The general pattern was similar; however a fall in the success rates from stock for foreign language and older humanities serials was observed. In contrast the BLLD is markedly more able to satisfy requests for English language monographs from stock, though a greater proportion was on loan when requested.

The BLLD is able to satisfy a growing percentage of requests for material in the humanities. Its retrospective collections and current purchasing policy, which are described in some detail, enable it to supply half of the humanities monographs requested and two thirds of the serials from stock, with increasingly high success rates for more recent material. A further 30% of monograph requests and 15% of serial requests are satisfied from back‐up libraries (including the legal deposit libraries) and other sources.

The purpose of this study is to determine what proportion of books were checked out in an academic library over a 15‐year period and what pattern of use occurs over the years and among various subject groups and between purchased and donated books.

Check‐out counts were obtained for each year over a 15‐year period and the results analysed by year, language, and Library of Congress classification.

Book check‐outs rise each year during the first five to seven years of a book's arrival in an academic library and stabilise after that period. Books that are checked out in their first year tend to continue to be checked out, while books that are not checked out in the first or second year will still not be checked out after 15 years. While overall check‐outs are generally about 70 per cent, some subject areas show almost 100 per cent use. As expected, books acquired as direct purchases had more use than books acquired as gifts. Although a third of the collection has not circulated over a 15‐year period, it is believed that the lack of use does not necessarily imply a lack of value.

This research covers a longer period than earlier studies and has been conducted in a non‐Western library using both Chinese and English texts. It supports the conclusion of earlier studies that approximately one‐third of book acquisitions will not be checked out and that circulation within the first few years of a book's acquisition is a good predictor of future circulation. For libraries considering remote storage, books not circulated within five to seven years could be removed to storage with little inconvenience to users.

The arrangement of the existing monograph stock at the BLLD is outlined, and the investigation to determine the optimum system for the BLLD's requirements described. From this, several models emerged from which one, involving alphabetical arrangement of recently acquired books and numerical arrangement of the rest, was chosen. The effects of implementing this decision are then discussed, with special attention to the large, uncatalogued collection from the NLLST.

This paper describes the systems and procedures at present employed by the BLLD to carry out its function of providing a rapid and comprehensive loan/photocopy request service. Acquisition, storing, the loan/photocopy service and recording are all covered in detail. An appendix gives details of the various records at the BLLD.

Aware of both the opportunities for automation of its union catalogues and of the problems posed by a potential shift to uncontrolled direct interlending stimulated by the growth of the co‐operatives' shared cataloguing databases, the British Library set up an Ad hoc Working Party on Union Catalogues, which reported in April. A strategy of interlending catalogue provision is proposed that has as its main elements a Union Finding List of Foreign Language Monographs on COM, a Lending Division monograph stock catalogue, on COM and on‐line, and the Combined Regional Locations List enhanced with Lending Division stock. Work is under way to choose a system capable of supporting these catalogues as well as the acquisition, cataloguing and request checking activities of the Division. The first phases of operation are scheduled for 1984.

Of the 377,000 requests per annum which the British Library Lending Division receives from overseas, some 21,000 are loan requests and the remainder are for photocopies. This paper reports the results of a study of the loan demand during six weeks in March/April 1977. Of the requests received during that period 77% arrived through the post and 23% by telex. Although most requests were for English language material only half were for British items. Of these 56% were for monographs and about a third were for humanities material (compared with a figure of only 11% of total demand on the Division). Most requests (73%) came from Europe, especially Scandinavia, and in this respect the distribution is quite different from the overseas photocopy demand, of which less than 50% comes from Europe. 51% of all requests are satisfied from stock, with a further 20% being passed to other libraries in the UK. The figures are 50% and 33% for British publications, where the Division is under more of an obligation to search throughout the country.

Scholarly monographs are a major information resource in the humanities. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of abstracting and indexing (A&I) databases and library catalogues (OPACs) for subject retrieval of these monographs.

A sample of monographs in philosophy was checked in the Philosopher's Index database and in library OPACs to establish how many subject terms were assigned per page of text.

The results highlighted the inadequate indexing of monographs in these databases. Various methods of improving subject access are discussed, including enriched subject content of database records. The search potential of full‐text databases is examined, with specific reference to two such databases, Oxford Scholarship Online and JSTOR.

It is suggested that current and planned digitization projects need to incorporate improved search facilities, either by automatic generation of subject‐rich document surrogates, or by the incorporation of author‐generated metadata.

This paper clarifies the current problems related to subject retrieval of scholarly monographs at a time when the launch of major digitization projects calls for urgent attention to this issue.

A library requiring items on interlibrary loan has several alternative sources of supply, at any rate for some categories of material. For example, with serials, locations can be looked up in BUCOP and application made direct; or there may be a local or subject union list that can be used in the same way; or requests can be sent to the British Library Lending Division (BLLD). For English‐language monographs, especially British, there is a choice between the regional system and the BLLD. For most other categories of material, including foreign language monographs, there is little alternative to the BLLD, though there may be other small systems available in certain subjects and regions.

The Report of the British Library ad hoc Working Party on Union Catalogues was published recently. The author, who is Head of Records at the British Library Lending Division and who acted as Secretary of the Working Party, provides a commentary on its recommendations and outlines the relationship between the proposed interlending strategy and the UK Library Database System. Progress towards the Lending Division monograph stock catalogue and the union finding list of foreign language monographs recommended by the Working Party are also reported.