Variation in Interlibrary Loan Use by University at Albany Science Departments

Abstract

Interlibrary loan use patterns for scientists at the University of Albany, SUNY, were determined by analyzing one year’s worth of filled interlibrary loan (ILL) requests for journal articles. Differences were observed among scientific disciplines in their reliance on ILL to obtain journal articles, with biology requesting the most (54%) and geology the least (l%). Most requests were made for only 1 or 2 articles. Individual journal titles were generally requested only once (79.9%). The majority of requests were for journal articles published in the ten years prior to the study, although 21% were for earlier materials. At the University at Albany, scientists are actively using electronic indexing and abstracting tools to identify journal articles (48%), although printed and other resources remain an important component of identification (32%).