Report on the session: What Does Interlibrary Loan Really Cost?

Mary Jackson is the Auto-Graphics Resource Sharing Product Manager. She was the first speaker of the day in three informational sessions sponsored by newly formed Resource Sharing section of the Connecticut Library Association on Monday April 19th, 2010. Mary has spent most of her career involved in the many facets of Interlibrary Loan (ILL). She has been a frequent speaker and writer on the subject.  In addition, she served as a consultant to several libraries, consortia and resource sharing organizations. Mary discussed the results of the ILL cost studies that she coordinated as Director of Collections and Access Programs for the Association of Research Libraries. Those studies were done with academic libraries. Mary provided details on the methodology used and answered questions regarding her results and techniques she applied. Her knowledge was extensive and all participants seemed actively interested in her presentation by the number of questions posed and answered.

Worksheets designed by Mary were given out to attendees and explained in detail. She invited participants to be part of the first public library study of ILL costs. The study would last three to four weeks and ending approximately on May 28th, 2010.  Librarians were asked to answer eight questions about staffing levels, incomes and hours worked doing ILL. This information should be recorded for one week using typical experiences. The results will be sent to Mary. She will calculate the results using her copyrighted Excel spread sheet for the libraries with the method she developed. She may pose follow-up questions with study participants as needed.  Librarians interested who did not attend, may still participate by going to the Resource Sharing Wiki at http://clarss.pbworks.com/.  It is an Excel spreadsheet titled “Cost Worksheet”.

Mary showed she definitely is well versed and enthusiastic about ILL.  She was patient and open to all questions posed. She stated her hope was that the results of this study would be a tool for librarians to measure how their library was doing in regards to ILL.  Furthermore she expressed to the group that by undergoing this study, Connecticut public librarians will have a better understanding of how ILL works at their libraries. The results will be shared with participants to compare and contrast their unit costs to other libraries in the state. Mary’s information was a great addition to the conference. The session room was full to capacity and many participants showed interest in being part of Mary’s ILL study for Connecticut Public Libraries.

Sponsor: Resource Sharing

Reporter: Shelley Holley