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Newsletter 14, March 1997 Charges for Inter-Library Loans

What are Inter-Library Loans?

The Library offers a service whereby books and journal articles which are not held in the libraries of Leeds Metropolitan University can be obtained from the British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC). Until recently, LSS had been offering inter-library loans as a free service to our students and staff. However, a charge of £1 for each inter-library loan requested and supplied was introduced on 1st September 1996.

Why was the charge introduced?

The service is expensive to provide, and demand for it has spiralled over the last few years. If we had not taken action, the proportion of the Library Materials Budget spent on inter-library loans would have become unacceptably high. We have been spending more on inter-library loans and less on our access to other information sources including our own library collections.

And?

The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 requires libraries who supply photocopies of journal articles to make a charge to the requester equivalent to the cost attributable to their production. Our charge of £1 means that we will be meeting the requirements of the Act. Requesters can keep the copies.

What does each inter-loan request cost?

BLDSC currently charges us £4.78 per request submitted. However, the true costs are higher because the service is very labour intensive to provide. We estimate that the true cost is about £6 per request.

How many inter-loan requests are received each year?

The number of requests has increased from 4,400 in 1988/89 to 12,000 in 1994/5

Why has the demand risen so sharply?

The increase in student numbers, especially postgraduate student numbers, is one of the reasons. But even more significant has been the ease of access of bibliographic databases on CD-ROM or on line. Students tend to find printed bibliographies laborious to use, but their electronic equivalents can be searched in seconds.

Can anyone use the inter-library loan service?

No. The service is only available to University staff, research students, students on taught Masters courses, and final-year undergraduates.

Does everybody have to pay the £1 charge for each request?

Following representations made by the LSS User Group and others, vouchers have been issued to Heads of Schools for use by staff and research students. A voucher can be used instead of the charge.

How should Schools distribute the vouchers?

The Schools can determine their own priorities for distributing the vouchers, but it should be remembered that not all staff and research students have had a need to use the service previously.

Can Schools obtain more vouchers?

Yes. Vouchers are available in multiples of ten from the Library at a cost of £1 each.

Are there any other restrictions on requesting inter-library loans?

Yes. There is an annual quota of up to 20 requests for undergraduates, 50 for Masters students, and 100 for staff and research students. Users are also limited in how many requests they can submit at one time.

Why do you need these restrictions if you are making a charge?

The £1 charge represents only about 17% of the costs of each inter-library loan. The remainder is being funded from the Library Materials Budget.

Why is the service so labour intensive?

You fill in a request form, we then check it and enter the details on to our LIBERTAS system. The requests are batched and sent electronically to the BLDSC each day. BLDSC prints out the requests, retrieves the requested items from its shelves, photocopies them, and then posts the items to us. We log them and notify the requester of their availability. If the request cannot be satisfied by BLDSC, it is sent to other libraries who might be able to satisfy it.

Why can’t users submit requests electronically and reduce the paperwork?

We are required under the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988 to obtain a written copyright declaration when a copy of a journal article is being requested. Electronic signatures are not acceptable.

Why do you check requests?

All requests are checked before being transmitted to BLDSC to weed out, for example, those which are for materials already held in our stock or requests for one-page items.

Is a charge made if the requested item cannot be obtained from BLDSC?

No — that is why we only make the charge on collection.

What happens if I do not collect the requested item?

You will still be liable for the charge and will be asked for it when you next borrow from the Library.

What happens to income from the charges?

The income goes back into the Library Materials Fund. The cost of each inter-loan is deducted from tutor librarians’ subject funds, and so the amount deducted for each inter-loan will be reduced by £1.

Do other libraries make a charge?

Yes. The majority of University libraries (including our neighbours at the University of Leeds) now require their users to make a small contribution towards the cost of an inter-library loan request.

Are there alternatives to inter-loan if what I need is not available at LMU?

We have reciprocal arrangements with local libraries which enable reference access. You can find out what these libraries hold through our own catalogue system, LIBERTAS. We have a weekly minibus service to the Reading Room at BLDSC at Boston Spa, or you can make independent arrangements to visit it. Staff and research students at LMU can take advantage of the borrowing scheme negotiated with the University of Leeds.

Access to electronic journals is growing, and this raises questions about the future of the inter-library loan service as we currently know it. Ask about these services and developments at the Enquiry Desk of your local site library.