Investigating Interlending : Resource Discovery, Sharing and Cooperation

1. Investigating Interlending: Resource Discovery, Sharing and Cooperation Dr.BrionyBirdi and Sophie Rutter With Dr. Stephen Pinfield and Dr. Simon Wakeling CPLIS (Centre for the Public Library and Information in Society), Information School, University of Sheffield

2. The Sheffield Project Team BrionyBirdi Stephen Pinfield Sophie Rutter Simon Wakeling

3. The context for our project • The Combined Regions (TCR) – to promote & enable resource discovery and resource sharing across library and information services in all sectors [delivered via UnityUK, which feeds into OCLC’s Worldcat database] • At its peak, UnityUK users initiated 400k+ searches annually, resulting in 175k requests for items. 2014 figures show a decline of 11.7% (searches) and 15.3% (requests). What are the reasons for this decline?

4. Starting to explore the reasons for the ‘decline’ • The increasing online availability of specialist resources in digital or physical form (including out of print titles)? • The move in libraries to provide access to electronic resources free of charge (e.g. historic newspapers, current specialist periodicals)? • The willingness of many HE libraries to offer walk-in access to their resources?

5. The context for our project (2) [Email to lis-pub-libs jiscmail list, 03.06.15] • ‘Can I ask is there anyone who has thought about- or who has actually opted out of - providing Inter Library Loans to their users in the light of budget cuts? • Our loans on this are dwindling fast.’

6. Project outline • Literature review – of academic and professional (including policy-related) work in the field, in order to develop 2 & 3. [Jan 2015] • National survey – with 3 objectives: a) to establish current levels of provision in public libraries; b) to investigate library managers’ views of the role of the digital envt in resource discovery & sharing; c) to investigate models of cooperation and resource sharing. [Feb-May 2015, including pilot survey] • Interview study – with managers from a sample of library services to ask questions similar to those in the national survey, in order to facilitate a comparison. [April-June 2015]

7. Survey distribution & response rate • Pilot study – LIEM members (February 2015) • Survey 1 – SCL list (March – May 2015) • Survey 2 – UnityUK List (May 2015)

8. Interview study: participants • 20 interviews (1 interview with 2 people) • 19 public libraries: South West (5), East Midlands (4), , East (4), London (2), Wales (2), North West (2), Yorkshire (1), South East (1) • 1 academic library: South West (1)

9. Survey results Section 1 – Current levels of provision

10. Does your service have staff with dedicated responsibility for interlending services?

11. Which interlending schemes is your service participating in?

12. Are you actively involved in the development of any new schemes?

13. What other types of scheme would you be interested in participating in? • It works as it is. • Any new scheme would only be valuable if it covered the costs of the staff and resources required • ‘Digital interlending would be of interest if suppliers would allow’; electronic document supply • ‘Shared reserve store, possibly sub-regional…although benefits may be minor’ * Copy the US reciprocal lending model

14. Is your service a net borrower or a net lender? *Excludes 6 UnityUK List respondents who answered "don’t know"

15. Selected Interview Findings:Current provision • 19 public library interviews, 19 different descriptions of interlending practices • Should interlending practices be consistent nationally, or is it important to have local differences? • “if you have that national presence …then it is going to be much easier from the customer’s point of view.” (I1) • “I think the sovereignty of each authority is something that I would hold very dear.” (I15) • Questions about what constitutes interlending (vs. shared LMS, national catalogue etc.)

16. Survey results Section 2 rationale and strategies

17. How important are the following factors as underlying reasons for providing interlending services?

18. Selected Interview Findings:Rationale and Strategies • Amazon considered an alternative to interlending for both libraries and their customers • “We look at interlibrary loans as they come up and if it is something for example that we can buy very cheaply off Amazon.” (I1) • “A lot of people as well will just simply get things from Amazon”. (I12) • Little connection between collection development and interlending • “We don’t actually, the joint procurements are part of a separate thing the joint buying consortium. Which is separate again. Different memberships.“ (I17)

19. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the view that user driven interlending represents the future of interlending services?

20. To what extent are collection development decisions in your service influenced by interlending opportunities?

21. Survey findings Section 3value for money

22. To what extent do the interlending schemes you participate in offer value for money to libraries? Distribution of "value for money" responses by scheme type (all respondents) N.B. ‘Don’t know’ and ‘Do not participate’ responses are not presented here

23. How can the value for money of interlendingschemes be demonstrated? (free-text question) Responses fell broadly into three categories: Suggested methods for assessing value for money relating to costs and usage rates Identified customer satisfaction as the main factor (and cost alone is not an appropriate measure of value) Efficiency as a key factor (staff time discovering, requesting & delivering items)

24. How can the value for money of interlendingschemes be demonstrated? (2) “Tough. Anecdotal satisfaction when a purposive borrower accesses a hard to reach item. However, given the failure of all library requests services for over 50 years, why are we bothering putting resources into serving a tiny proportion of users?” (49) Two further notable responses from senior managers: “I think this is a meaningless question. Interlending is never good value for money as it is a very expensive customised service. It is valuable and valued but not good value for money in the economic sense.” (57)

25. In general, are library-to-library interlending charges appropriate? * Excludes 7 respondents who answered “Don’t know”

26. What delivery, collection or access options do you currently offer, or plan to offer, to users?

27. How important are the following factors to the future of interlending in the digital age?

28. What measures does your service take to reduce the costs of interlending? * Respondents who answered “Don’t know” are excluded from the table

29. Value for money Strongly contrasting opinions: ‘It’s under threat because it costs too much money’ vs. ‘It’s an essential service because budgets are being cut’ What do you think?

30. Points for discussion Key findings and questions

31. Main Findings - Tensions • Contrasting (and sometimes contradictory) views and evidence relating to: • Use of interlending terminology • How schemes operate • Moral/historical imperative for interlending • Impact of the digital environment • Perceived user demand

32. Main Findings - Consequences • Difficult to develop best practice models • Benchmarking is problematic • Users are confused • Barriers to engagement with National stakeholders

33. Completing the project Where do we go from here?

34. Next Steps • Complete analysis of interview data • Fully integrate research phases • Report for TCR • Academic journal article (e.g. JOLIS) • Professional journal article (e.g. Update)

35. Thank you for listening! If you would like to discuss this project or find out more about our work, please contact b.birdi@sheffield.ac.uk or go to www.shef.ac.uk/is/research/centres/cplis