I would very strongly disagree about the morals of borrowing on
ILL material which is in print. It seems to me a perfectly
sensible thing to do (I am assuming here that the lending library
is the British Library, as it is for us).
If a member of Faculty staff needs a particular book for a
reserach project it may be by far the best way to supply it for
various reasons. 1) My book budget is limited and I shouldn't be
using it to provide material that one person may need once. 2) My
library's space is limited and I shouldn't clutter up the shelves
with books which one person may need once. 3) The BLDSC is funded
(though not well enough I admit) to offer this service, and
publishers are required to supply them with deposit copies for
the purpose. 4) The library here is willing to supply material
the BL hasn't got, and regards that as a good deal.
Of course in an ideal world many books would be available
electronically on a pay-per-view basis, which would avoid these
problems.
I don't see that the availability of book ordering over the WWW
really affects the way we should think about ILLs.
Clare Bainbridge
Engineering Subject Librarian
University of the West of England, Bristol
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