Document Delivery At NEIU

Articles on Demand: Library PerspectivesALA Annual Conference

June 30, 2014Susie Bossenga, Northeastern Illinois University

7500 FTE 37 undergraduate majors, 31 graduate

degree programs Commuter campus, diverse student body About the Library

◦ $1.1 Million Library Materials Budget◦ 786,151 Volumes Held◦ 32,795 Serials Titles Currently Received

About Northeastern Illinois University

Shrinking Book Budget in 2006

Shrinking Journal Subscriptions

Search the web◦ Presentations◦ Committee Meeting Minutes◦ Notes/minutes from task forces◦ Academic library news blog

Consult other libraries◦ Notre Dame◦ Carlton University◦ Virginia Tech◦ Marshall University

Research Process

Mediated vs. Unmediated◦ Unmediated provides more immediate access to

patrons◦ Mediated provides more control over document

delivery use and spending

Questions to Consider

Can patrons request an unlimited number of articles?◦ How would you track the number of requests?◦ What would be an appropriate limit?◦ Would you need different limits for different

groups of patrons (e.g. higher for faculty)?◦ What are patrons options when their limit is

reached?

Questions to Consider

Do we worry about our holdings? (e.g. what if someone requests something the library already owns?)◦ How much overlap exists? Is it enough to justify

spending time worrying about our holdings?◦ If using an unmediated model, what are ways to

prevent/discourage patrons from requesting content already owned by the library?

◦ If using a mediated model, how much staff time should be spent verifying the library doesn’t own content?

Questions to Consider

Should document delivery be directly integrated into link resolver (SFX)?◦ Increase discoverability of content◦ Require staff time to maintain◦ Link direct to content or link to a request form?

(mediated vs. unmediated)

Questions to Consider

Do we require users to set up individualized accounts, or do we have a centralized library account?

Is document delivery a better option than maintaining publisher packages?

How does content available through document delivery fit in with the library’s overall collection?

Questions to consider

Document delivery would be mediated by ILL staff

No limit on number of requests ILL staff would verify content not already

owned by library No separate links for document delivery in

the link resolver – patrons requested articles using the same form as for ILL requests.

NEIU’s Plan

Infotrieve Ingenta BLInside BLDirect Plus (in beta)

BLInside selected for price and availability of desired content

Testing Services

Cost per use analysis was done to determine high cost/low use titles as potential cancellations

Bibliographers searched BLInside to determine availability and quality of content from titles targeted for cancellation

Titles for which document delivery would be an acceptable alternative were cancelled.

Implementation

List was created of all cancelled titles ILL staff were instructed to use document

delivery as the preferred method for fulfilling requests from titles on the list

Document delivery only used for titles not on the list if content was unavailable through other ILL methods.

Implementation

Cancelled 50 Journal Titles $90,000 saved from subscriptions ILL/Document Delivery expenditures

increased by about $22,000

Success

DRM software problematic for some users Difficulty accessing and using new BL

interface

Challenges

Copyright Clearance Center’s Get It Now◦ Implemented as primary document delivery

service in 2011◦ Remains a mediated service◦ Use ILLead Add-on makes it easier to determine

which articles are available through Get It Now◦ Titles that reach threshold for copyright

compliance also purchased using Get It Now

Making the Switch

Exploring possibility of individual accounts with British Library for faculty to allow them to make unmediated loans.

Revisiting titles we will automatically request through document delivery.

Looking Forward

Green, D. & Melian, C. (2011, March). A long and winding road: Document delivery project at NEIU. Presented at the I-Share IACQ Open House, Chicago, IL.

Bibliography