An analysis of interlibrary loan services: a case study of a university in South Africa
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-08-2017-0059 |
| Published date | 19 February 2018 |
| Date | 19 February 2018 |
| Pages | 26-37 |
| Author | Siviwe Bangani,Sabelo Chizwina,Mathew Moyo |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Library & information services,Lending,Document delivery,Collection building & management,Stock revision,Consortia |
An analysis of interlibrary loan services: a case
study of a university in South Africa
Siviwe Bangani, Sabelo Chizwina and Mathew Moyo
Library and Information Services, North-West University - Mafikeng Campus, Mmabatho, South Africa
Abstract
Purpose –The landscape of teaching, learning and research has changed requiring the need for diverse information resources. Given the current
budgetary constraints and financial conditions prevailing in many universities, sharing of information reso urces has become a necessity. The
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) services have thus become an important service to meet the immediate needs of library users. The aim of this paper is to
analyse the ILL services of the North-West University in South Africa from 2006 to 2016. Using statistical data, the paper shows the emerging
pattern in borrowing and lending between institutions as well as determines the existence of correlations between borrowin g and lending libraries.
The results of this study show that ILL amongst libraries has decreased in the past 11 years. A need exists for increased awareness of ILL and there is
need for technological innovations that will ensure that library users are able to request for information r esources seamlessly.
Design/methodology/approach –This is a quantitative study that uses ILL data from the North-West University. Data were downloaded from the
SABINET ILL system using the three NWU JC codes. They were then collated and uploaded on excel spreadsheets. In the main, the excel
spreadsheets were used to interpret the data. Further, the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, in particular Spearman’s
Correlation Analysis, was used to test correlations between data from libraries that reque sted information resources from NWU and data from
libraries that supplied information resources to NWU during this period using Rumsey’s guidelines to interpret the correlations.
Findings –The findings of the study reveal that ILL among libraries in South Africa had generally declined owing mostly to the proliferation of
online resources resulting to changes in user information-seeking behaviour. The decline is despite the challenges of low budgets received by most
libraries for the acquisition of information resources. It can also be concluded that public university librari es still value ILL as demonstrated by the
high number of items requested from other libraries. The findings also reveal that most ILL activities wereconduct ed by public universities.
Research limitations/implications –It was not possible to obtain the list of titles that have been requested and also to obtain the user’s details.
This would have enabled the authors to determine the type of titles that are being requested, and the users that request them.
Practical implications –ILL should continue to be enhanced in view of the challenge of dwindling library budgets against the escalating price s of
information resources. There is also a need for user education so that they become aware of the ILL service. From experience, library users normally
give up once they realize that what they wanted is not available through the local catalogue and this calls for librarians to create an awareness to
users that ILL could help solve their frustrations.
Social implications –These results show that ILL can play a significant role to level the playing field between the well-resourced libraries in
urbanized regions or provinces and the poorly resourced ones in rural regions or provinces. This social justice aspect of ILL is probably the r eason
why better resourced libraries in South Africa have decided to remain in the scheme unlike other countries where better resourced libraries opted out
of reciprocal arrangements with small and medium-sized institutions.
Originality/value –The study adds to a very limited number of studies emanating from Africa. A study of this nature has never been conducted in
Africa, as previous studies were nationwide studies. As far as the authors know, this is the first study that uses ILL data to research the impact of the
global financial crisis on libraries in Africa.
Keywords Universities, Document delivery, Interlending, Document supply, Resource sharing, Interlibrary
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Libraries have long realized that “no library is an island”
meaning that no matter how big the size or budgetor amount of
resources a library may have, it cannot meet all the possible
needs of its users independently. To that effect, libraries
through forming consortiums or partnerships decided to pull
their resources together for the benefit of the users. The
practice of sharing resources between libraries has a long
history. According to Ellingson and Morris (2011), Inter
Library Loans (ILL) trace their originfrom 3400 and 3000 BC
during the times when scribes were used to transcribe content
from clay tablets to enable delivery of the information
elsewhere. There is evidence that some form of catalogue of
books was created as early as the 800’s as a small list of books
was found in a copy of St. Augustine’s De Trinitate in the
Bodleian Library (Miguel, 2007). It was not until 1876, that
the issue of a formal ILL would be raised in a journalarticle by
Samuel Green (Miguel, 2007;Ellingson and Morris, 2011).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/2398-6247.htm
Information Discovery and Delivery
46/1 (2018) 26–37
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 2398-6247]
[DOI 10.1108/IDD-08-2017-0059]
Received 4 August 2017
Revised 14 November 2017
Accepted 14 November 2017
26
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