Abstract
How can library staff develop and promote a document delivery service and then expand the service to a wide audience? The setting is the library at the Indiana University School of Dentistry (IUSD), Indianapolis. A faculty survey and a citation analysis were conducted to determine potential use of the service. Volume of interlibrary loan transactions and staff and equipment capacity were also studied. IUSD Library staff created a desktop delivery service (DDSXpress) for faculty and then expanded the service to practicing dental professionals and graduate students. The number of faculty using DDSXpress remains consistent. The number of practicing dental professionals using the service is low. Graduate students have been quick to adopt the service. Through careful analysis of capacity and need for the service, staff successfully expanded document delivery service without incurring additional costs. Use of DDSXpress is continually monitored, and opportunities to market the service to practicing dental professionals are being investigated.
Highlights
Library patrons have come to expect electronic access to full-text articles and books
Additional access to materials is made possible through sharing agreements and interlibrary loan (ILL) transactions with other libraries
Decreasing demand for ILL transactions offered the Indiana University School of Dentistry (IUSD) Library an opportunity to put a document delivery service into place. Even those libraries that are experiencing increases in ILL transactions might find that document delivery service is a worthwhile investment for increasing access to a print collection and creating good will across the organization
Summary
Library patrons have come to expect electronic access to full-text articles and books. Decreasing demand for ILL transactions offered the Indiana University School of Dentistry (IUSD) Library an opportunity to put a document delivery service into place. ILL service is available for any journal article, book, or other material not held by the IUSD Library. The IUSD Library processes far more lending requests than borrowing requests each year This can, in part, be attributed to the strength of the journal collection. The library has been increasing the number of journals available online and purchasing electronic back-files when possible. These two factors have caused the number of articles processed for borrowing to decrease. Lending requests for articles are somewhat erratic and show wide variance from year to year, but there is a sense in the IUSD Library that the overall movement is downward
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