College and Research Libraries By RUTH HARRY and HARALD OSTYOLD Interlibrary Loan Service and National Research Miss Harry is acting chief of the czrcu- lation department, and Mr. Ostvold is chief of the reference department, Washington University, St. Louis. T HERE WOULD be little justification for another article on interlibrary loans if it were based only on one library's experi- ences with the traditional problems associ- ated with this service. Writings on the sub- ject, while less numerous now than during the twenties and thirties, have certainly cov- ered the old ground often enough to make further repetition unnecessary. We will attempt, therefore, to go beyond the re- stating of traditional vexations and suggest different approaches to the problems. The traditional problems, those which have appeared often enough and long enough to deserve that title, are almost all of a local and administrative nature and vary widely in importance among institu- tions and administrators. Is a particular loan request justified or needed? Are there occasions when interlibrary loans should be made for undergraduates? Shall loan re- quests be honored if the bibliographical in- formation supplied is inadequate? What can be done about borrowers who are habi- tually late in returning material? Should the service be handled by the reference de- partment or the circulation department? These are, in the main, local difficulties and can be dealt with on that level. Certain other interlibrary loan problems, however, transcend the individual institu- APRIL, 1949 tion and are part of the broad, over-all re- search problem of the nation as a whole. Presently available bibliographic aids for lo- cating research material are inadequate and frequently retard the service. Costs of handling the service are increasing, and many libraries are questioning the justice of charging these costs against conventional items of the budget. More emphasis is needed on the importance of interlibrary loan service to the over-all national research program. Washington University's primary vexa- tion has been a traditional one: funds. By · plundering a budgetary item called "Ex- pense Account," interlibrary loans have pushed that item beyond reasonable propor- tions. Funds that would no'rmally go for such services as rebinding, building upkeep, and supplies are being channeled away to meet express and postage costs. We have, as yet, made no charges of any kind for in- terlibrary loan service. A liberal policy of encouraging the service has been followed. No geographical boundaries have been drawn. We have not attempted to set up special funds for the service. There is no accounting record showing exact costs of the service. However., the time is near when interlibrary loan costs must be faced as an individual, separate problem of the budget picture. We would like to solve this problem without departing from our liberal stand on the question of providing the research worker freely with the ma- terials he needs. 145 In an effort to determine the extent to which this situation exists at other colleges and universities, a brief questionnaire was sent to fifty-one institutions. The returns from forty-eight libraries are shown in the table on p. I 49· The six questions contained in the survey, and the replies, will be dis- cussed briefly. Finally, we will summarize some conclusions drawn from the survey. I. Do you make a charge for interlibrary loan service? If so, what is it? This question proved to be somewhat ambiguous, unfortunately. The intention was to determine if a charge was made against the borrower, whether library or individual, for any part of the service, in- cluding transportation. It is possible that some libraries misinterpreted the question and the results may not be entirely valid. It is interesting to note, however, that a flat rate charge has been adopted at only four institutions, only two of which charge faculty. No library, apparently, charges for its services as a lender. The borrow- ing library, of course, pays all transporta- tion costs. Yet it would seem justifiable that a lending library make a flat rate charge for its service. Such a charge would, for instance, to some degree compensate the large libraries, that are called on most fre- quently, for part of their service. One librarian called attention to the cost of setting up books for such an account, and several expressed opposition to the idea of charging for what is basically a library service. Twenty libraries make some charge for transportation, either to all users of the service, to students only, or to outsiders only. Here, too, several librarians were emphatic in stating that the library should absorb this expense. It is true that all costs involved in the bibliographic work of locating and verifying materials for interlibrary loans are costs that a library incurs in fulfilling its normal functions. Such costs are often no greater than if the borrower called for the book in person. Wrapping costs, messenger time, transportation charges, and postage might be considered as going beyond normal li- brary responsibilities. No indication was made in any of the returns, however, that any library has attempted to make an item- ized cost survey on this basis or on any other. Nor was there any positive statement by any librarian that he felt such a cost · survey was needed. · Yet at least eleven ways of handling these costs and apportioning them were noted in the forty-seven surveys returned: i.e., charg- ing transportation costs to all borrowers, to students onl~, to outsiders only; charg- ing flat rate to all borrowers, to graduate students only, to outsiders only; charging for costs above a certain level; charging only for special services, such as telephone or tele- graph, air mail, etC'. 2. Do you find that your interlibrary loan service expense is increasing to the point . where it is becoming a burden? Nine replies stated without qualifications that the service was becoming a burden, either because of cost or time. Sixteen more were in agreement that the service was be- coming a burden, but hastened to state that the service was worth it. A number of li- brarians, including those at larger libraries, vigorously denied that interlibrary .loan service is a burden. No librarian suggested reducing or eliminating the service. It ap- pears that interlibrary loan service has thoroughly proved its value. 3· Do you include an item in your budget specifically for the expense of operating an interlibrary loan service? Only three libraries have set up special funds to handle this service. This would seem to indicate that the service has not yet come of age. And yet an item that at 146 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES most colleges and universities is costing as much as several thousand dollars annually would seem to deserve some sort of special budgetary attention. Some further sugges- tions on the question of budgets are made in the conclusion of the article. 4. Do you limit yourself geographically in your interlibrary loan service ? As expected, no library definitely refuses to act as lender or borrower because of geographical distances, although some in- dicated they would prefer such a limitation. One library admitted reluctance to sending books outside the United States, though books are occasionally sent to Canada and Mexico. Another library tries to keep its interlibrary loans within a five hundred mile area. Since time and transportation cost factors increase with greater distances, geographi- calli~itations on loans would be desirable~ But the difficulty of locating material with present union catalog facilities makes this 11.n ideal more to be hoped for than achieved at present. There is, too, the desire to as- sist libraries in Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, and other remote locations in providing re- search materials. 5· Do you have a written policy on inter- library loan service? Few libraries seem to have devised local regulations to supplement or to interpret the standard A.L.A. code·. The code itself is flexible enough, and phrased in general enough terms, to permit local variations. For instance, there may be occasions when undergraduate research work is important enough to justify use , of interlibrary loan service. Some libraries have inadequate bibliographical aids to verify authors and titles, but should not be denied service for that reason. Some borrowers refuse to ob- serve time limits and frequently lending libraries are not notified that the loan period should be extended. In most in- APRIL_, 1949 stances, it appears, the A.L.A. code can be used as it stands. -6. What was the volume of your inter- library loans for the fiscal year 1946-47? Since comparative figures are not avail- able over a number of years, these figures can only indicate the present volume of serv- ice. It is obvious that the gross costs of the ~ervice, however, if computed for trans- portation alone, or for transportation plus man-hours, must be considerable. The larger libraries are carrying the heaviest burden, yet some of these institutions were most vigorous in their defense of interli- brary loan service. This survey was initiated by Washington University Library, as indicated earlier, be- cause interlibrary loan service has become a financial burden. It should be noted that this complaint is directed chiefly against ex- press and postage costs. The library con- tinues to . welcome the opportunity to serve other libraries. But it was, frankly, in the hope of finding that some institutions had faced, and in some manner solved, the prob- lem of meeting transportation costs that the survey was made. The results have shown that forty-eight libraries have found at least eleven different ways of meeting the prob- lem, none of them entirely satisfactory. This library has no desire to complain about the personnel costs to the circulation department, which handles the service here. That is regarded by us and by most libraries, and we feel properly so, as a legitimate func- tion of the library. We agree that librar- ians could be more careful in putting their requests in proper form, that some libraries and borrowers are tardy in returning ma- terials, that the need for some material re- quested may be trivial, that books are un- doubtedly borrowed for class use or for un- dergraduates. We agree that heavy vol- umes should not be requested for the sake of a half-dozen pages that could be repro- 147 duced photographically for less than the cost of transportation. We can only try to keep these minor abuses to a minimum. The cost of transportation, however, constitutes a considerable budgetary problem. It is diffi- cult for some libraries to justify charging individuals for transporfation, when other libraries absorb the costs. It is difficult for some libraries to convince their administra- tions that special funds should be allotted for the purpose, when only three out of forty-nine libraries have found it necessary to do so. Washington University Library has arrived at this impasse: much as it regrets to do so, it will find it necessary to begin assessing borrowers for part or all of the transportation costs unless it can persuade the administration to set up special funds for the purpose. We firmly believe that book funds and funds provided for other services should not absorb this increasing cost. And yet we feel that interlibrary loan service is one of the most positive con- tributions any research library can make to a national program of research. Since research is a national problem, in- terlibrary loan service deserves to be con- sidered on that level. Two general ap- proaches to this problem are suggested. First, it is recommended that college and .:.· university libraries participating in inter- library loan service unite on a common policy in requesting that special funds be provided at each institution for meeting the costs of this service, either transportation costs alone, or transportation plus person- nel. It is believed that book funds, depart- mental funds, supply funds, or salary funds should not be drained to provide transpor- tation costs. The second approach, more ideal and perhaps more difficult to attain, was sug- gested some years ago by Dr. ]. Christian Bay. If, as suggested above, interlibrary loan service is part of a national research program, the federal government should be urged to extend the franking privilege to libraries. The total research program of the nation consists of innumerable little segments of work being done in the various universities and research institutions. The sum total of this effort is the national re- search program. The life of the nation de- pends on it. It would seem eminently proper that the government recognize the importance of the interlibrary loan phase of this program and open the doors wide to the full extension of service that forward- looking librarians would welcome. The full benefits of interlibrary loans in further- ing research will not be felt until research workers, the nation over, have at their com- mand the research facilities of the nation. There is another aspect of the interlibrary ioan problem which can be considered as going beyond the bounds of local adminis- tration. It is evident that the nation will be without complete union catalog and bib- liographic aids for some years to come. The tremendous accomplishments of the Library. of Congress in this direction are still far from c~mplete realization. A partial solu- tion of this lack may be found in the fol- lowing procedure. Conventional biblio- graphic citation procedure requires, among other things, that the writer note complete bibliographic data for the . works .cited in his writings. It fails to require what may easily be of primary importance to the per- son using the bibliographic citations: the location of the book cited. It is suggested that a program for , including in standard bibliographic citation form a symbol to in- dicate the location of the 'book cited be ini- tiated. The symbols themselves are avail- able in the Library of Congress handbook, Symbols Used in the Union Catalog of the Library of Congress. It is suggested that, as a part of standard bibliographic citation 148 - COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES Table I!}terlibrary Loan Practices and Services in 48 College and University Libraries Charge to User Number Library I Special Written Flat I Trans- Fund Policy Rate1 portation Borrowed Loaned ----- ----- Brown n n 378 558 n n Bryn Mawr n y '246 '246 n n California (L. A.) n y2 934 . 889 n y Chicago n n 1085 3834 n n Cincinnati f' n n '210 514 n n Colorado n y3 555 460 y4 n Columbia '25¢ pv - 1675 4'218 n y Cornell n y6 604 1'260 n y Dartmouth n y6 17'2 6'25 n n Duke n y5 1061 1780 n n Harvard n n 919 43'20 y y Indiana n y7 886 985 n n Iowa n n - - n n Iowa State so¢ pv - 38'2 ?56 n n Joint University Libraries, Nashville, Tenn. n y 853 !'266 n n Kansas n n 44'2 453 y n Louisiana n y6 455 784 n y M.I.T. n y 748 6533 n y Michigan n n 906 '2691 n y Minnesota n n 44'2 H8o n n Mt. Holyoke n y '209 IIO n y Nebraska n y 161 405 n n New York University '$1 8 - 153 301 n n North Carolina n n 1990 1317 n y North Dakota n y3 39 57 n n· Northwestern n y9 .1351 1869 ylO n Oberlin n y3 '271 46'2 n n Ohio n n 746 1335 - n Oregon n n 1656 10'2'2 n n Pennsylvania n n 696 1306 n n Pittsburgh n y3 319 '25'2 n n Princeton n n 845 1696 n n Rochester n n '256 1078 n y Rutgers n n - - n n St. Louis University yll i1 171 1o6 n y Smith n n 454 186 n y Stanford n y - - yl2 y Temple n n 353 460 n y Texas n n 453 1543 n y Vassar n n 147 90 n y Virginia n y 518 754 y13 n Washington University n n '215 '2'20 n n Washington (State} University n n 471 1678 n n Washington State n n - - n y Wellesley n y 90 109 n n Western Reserve n n 179 530 n n Wisconsin n n 694 900 n n Yale n y 416 1509 n n N=No; Y=yes. I None of charges shown in this column are made against other libraries or outside borrowers, only against persons within the institution using the service. 2 For "special borrowers." 3 Faculty does not pay. • Special fund for faculty loans to cover transportation. • Borrower pays charges one way. a Persons outside college pay transportation charges. 7 Only if $ro or more. s Flat rate charge of $r per book made to students at N.Y.U. only, no. charge to faculty or other libraries. 9 Faculty members allotted $2 each per year, pay all transportation costs incurred over that figure; students pay all transportation costs. 1o Only enough to pay the $2 allotted each faculty member annually. n $r for first title, 25t for each additional title in same unit. Against users within St. Louis University only, no charge tt'l other institutions. 12 Salary of person handling interlibrary loans comes from a special fund. 13 Special $300 fund to cover messenger service, addressing labels, wrapping packages. APRIL~ 1949 149 procedure, writers be encouraged to include a symbol indicating the location of the books referred to in any bibliographic citation. In the course of a few years, the nation would have innumerable union catalogs in subject form indicating locations of large segments of research material. Since schol- ars usually get their information on books wanted fr