Interlibrary Loan Librarian here- this is the equivalent of the...
Skee-Ball Librarian@oodja
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Sep 15, 2026
~4 min read
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Interlibrary Loan Librarian here- this is the equivalent of the Internet panning us on a LibQUAL+ evaluation. Too many ILL shops are like black holes- you drop your request in and maybe it gets filled, maybe not, and don't forget the time dilation.
Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe@lisalibrarian
So librarians ... we have a choice ... recognize that our service models aren't up to the needs of researchers and innovate or ... ? x.com/Joanne_Paul_/s…
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So what's the real problem here? There are a few forces at work:
1. No library or library system is collecting like they used to, which means everyone is relying more on ILL as a supplement to collection development.
1. No library or library system is collecting like they used to, which means everyone is relying more on ILL as a supplement to collection development.
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2. What libraries are spending more and more $$$ on are e-resources which are a giant pain in the ass to share, subject to insaner embargo windows, and/or not the format that our researchers prefer.
Want to know how many ILL requests we get for print versions of ebooks we own?
Want to know how many ILL requests we get for print versions of ebooks we own?
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3. This brings us to patron expectations, which have been shaped by 20 years of e-commerce. The simple truth of the matter is that most of our ILL discovery and fulfillment systems are still built on the old "You Want It When?" model, not the "I NEED IT NOW" service expectation.
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4. Dissatisfaction with the speed of "traditional' ILL has already lead to the evolution of parallel services WITHIN the library world. Chances are your school belongs to a consortial borrowing/lending platform: Borrow Direct, EZ-Borrow, or U-Borrow etc.
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4a. These consortial platforms are already responsible for moving around the lion's share of what would have been ILL requests otherwise, leveraging closed groups with shared discovery and real-time availability information to ensure efficiency and timeliness.
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5. This is all well and good for print materials, but what about periodical articles and scans of book chapters? Discovery is pushing this stuff front and center to our scholars, but as far as "getability" is concerned, if you don't have local access it's still a crapshoot.
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6. Even if you DO have access, sometimes your rights management sucks so bad (LISTEN UP HERE VENDORS), that a patron would rather do anything but click all the way down through to the article itself. Or maybe they do click all the way down and Mercury is in retrograde.
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7. Not surprisingly, a solution parallel to the print consortium arose to solve this problem as well. Enter RAPID ILL, which evolved out of a flood disaster in the Colorado State Library system into the backbone of one of best article delivery systems available in ILL land.
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7a. RAPID ILL divides its component libraries up into "pods" which roughly correspond to a given library or library system's peer group. Again you get fast-tracked discovery and real-time availability and recently RAPID has started to offer book chapters to its offerings as well.
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8. So to say that resource sharing is completely blind to its shortcomings is a stretch. We are often made painfully aware of how much we're failing our patrons in meeting their research needs in a "just in time" information market.
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9. That being said, however, we have been actively working to close this gap between expectation and reality. Unfortunately not all of these tools are available to all libraries, so there is an ongoing question of equity across the system.
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10. What haunts me more than disappointed users is the thought that there is now a significant portion of our patrons who turn to grey market solutions FIRST. I know how to make a bad product or service better, but I don't know how to reach someone who never came to me at all.
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11. So that's my take on workarounds to resource sharing. I understand why they exist and would like to find a way to meet these patrons in the middle. Because trust me, the crowdsourcing option scales even worse than an actual library service.
Also, this thread goes to eleven.
Also, this thread goes to eleven.
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12. OK, just one more thought. Are you frustrated with your library's ILL service? TELL THEM. Also, make sure your library admins know how important ILL is to your research. Does ILL have a seat at the collection development table? If not, ask why.
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12a. Interlibrary loan arose from a "Just In Case" historical context to become one of the cornerstones in a "Just In Time" information delivery model. Has your library acknowledged this paradigm shift and equipped/funded/staffed your ILL unit accordingly?
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13. ONE MORE THING that's been bothering me about this thread- the scale.
Based on Twitter data gathered on the hashtag #icanhazpdf averages about ~200 article requests per month.
Some ILL shops see that many requests in a DAY.
Scalability is everything.
Based on Twitter data gathered on the hashtag #icanhazpdf averages about ~200 article requests per month.
Some ILL shops see that many requests in a DAY.
Scalability is everything.