Bridging library resources across the Pacific: the characteristics of US academic users and their use of a gateway service
| Pages | 8-20 |
| Date | 01 February 2003 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470310462371 |
| Published date | 01 February 2003 |
| Author | Hong Xu,Jin Pang |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Bridging library
resources across the
Pacific: the
characteristics of US
academic users and
their use of a gateway
service
Hong Xu and
Jin Pang
1. Introduction
The Gateway Service Center (GSC) of the
Chinese Academic Journal Publications at the
East Asian Library of the University of
Pittsburgh Library System was established in
October 1998 by a grant from the US Federal
Institute of Museum and Library Services
(IMLS). The University of Pittsburgh's East
Asian Library won a ``National Leadership
Grant Award'' in 1998 from the IMLS. The
IMLS grant lasted through October 2000 and
was extended to October 2001. Since October
2001, the center has been financially
supported by the University of Pittsburgh
library system.
When it was funded, GSC was envisioned
as being a pioneer model for developing a
transcontinental interlibrary partnership that
would use electronic technology to help
US-based scholars of China studies to obtain
academic journal articles unavailable in US
libraries (Miller, 1998; Miller and Zhou,
1999). In the past three years, the center has
succeeded in not only providing an effective
research support to hundreds of China
scholars in the USA, but also in creating an
extensive partnership with six academic
libraries in East Asia. In an age when research
has become increasingly global-oriented,
academic libraries are urged to develop new
models of services to best meet the needs of
users, as well as to most effectively take
advantage of modern technology. On the
other hand, academic libraries have faced
significant challenges as the consequence of
budget cuts and escalating prices for serial
literature, especially for overseas journals. For
example, according to the American
Association of Research Libraries' (ARL)
statistics, research libraries subscribed to
6 percent fewer journals in 1999 than they did
in 1986 but they were spending 170 percent
more to subscribe (ARL, 1999). Under this
context, the experience of the GSC has
become a significant subject that warrants
special attention for academic libraries. The
purpose of this study is to examine the
characteristics of US-based users of the center
over the past three years and the users'
document request patterns, assess the
effectiveness of the center's services, and
finally, offer some thoughts about future
improvements. Specifically, this study
answers six research questions:
The authors
Hong Xu is Assistant Professor in the School of
Information Sciences and Jin Pang is Library
Instruction/Document Delivery Librarian at East Asian
Library, both at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, USA.
Keywords
Library services, Interlibrary lending,
Resource management, Document supply, Virtual libraries
Abstract
This study investigates the characteristics of US users and
their document request patterns at the Gateway Service
Center of the Chinese Academic Journal Publications at a
research university library and evaluates the effectiveness
of the service. The study shows that the center's primary
users are faculty, graduate students, and researchers in
the areas of Chinese history, literature, language,
philosophy, and politics. Their requests generally link to
research-related projects and focus on articles in the arts
and humanities and social sciences, published in 1980s in
Mainland Chinese publications. The center has
significantly higher average fill rate and faster turnaround
time compared with the ordinary ILL services.
Electronic access
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is
available at
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm
8
The Electronic Library
Volume 21 .Number 1 .2003 .pp. 8-20
#MCB UP Limited .ISSN 0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/02640470310462371
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