The Interlibrary Loan department at Hardin Library has many functions. Most of you are familiar with using this service to obtain copies of articles from journals not available locally, or to request loans of books not held on campus. This process of interlibrary loan is referred to as ‘borrowing’. Last fiscal year we obtained 8,305 journal articles and 539 books for our patrons. Through a program called Ariel, 62% of these articles were received via the internet, and of those, 87% were delivered to our patrons desktop.
As a resource library and member of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, it is also our responsibility to provide articles and books to other libraries; referred to as ‘lending’. Last fiscal year we provided 30,040 articles and 751 books to over 2,500 different places within Iowa, the United States and internationally. With the use of Ariel, 65% were sent via the internet within 8 hours of downloading the requests.
In addition to the borrowing and lending of materials with other institutions, the 3 person interlibrary loan staff, with the help of 30 student hours per week, runs the University Libraries’ Article Delivery Service (ADS) program. For the last fiscal year, 5468 articles were copied from materials on campus and sent to faculty, staff and students. An additional 375 requests were delivered to University of Iowa distance education students.
Additional information about interlibrary loan and ADS policies, as well as online order forms, can be found at the department Web site: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/ill.
