Document Delivery at a Veterinary Medical Library

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to assess the use of document delivery services provided for primary clientele of the Veterinary Medical Library at Auburn University. This study describes and quantifies external library use patterns of the College of Veterinary Medicine faculty, staff and students, for a twelve-month period, though an analysis of the library's courier and interlibrary loan services. Three hypotheses are tested: (1) the majority of courier and interlibrary loan requests are for serials; (2) most serial requests are for nonveterinary journals; and (3) the demand for interlibrary loan and courier services follows a non-random pattern of distribution, i.e., the numbers of requests per month are unequal. The first two hypotheses are confirmed. Of the 2,376 requests for library materials external to VML, 2,197 (92%) are for serials; of the serials requests 1,608 (73%) are for nonveterinary journals. The third hypothesis is also confirmed. The chi square predicates a nonrandom distribution of reque...