Library Quarterly Report FY24 Q1: July-Sept 2023

Interlibrary Loans (ILL) and Document Deliveries

Interlibrary lending, coordinated by Barb Neyman, is critical for locating and delivering specialized sources to VDOT employees. We use OCLC's WorldShare ILL network to borrow and lend worldwide. We were a non-lender for 5 quarters during the hardest part of the pandemic, but restored our lending status more than a year ago. Overall, our fill rate for requests was higher before the pandemic than after and these days we find we are frequently being asked by libraries to lend "non-lendable" materials like eBooks. This quarter we were asked for 47 items, but were only able to grant 2 loans (one hard copy and one scan). Most common reasons for refusal to loan were "auto deflections" an inability to lend eBooks or other "licensed" resources, and our policy not to lend reference materials. On the borrowing side we had a 100% fill rate, though we did not request many items. We requested and received 18 items from libraries in 7 U.S. states and one foreign country (Germany).