We're a departmental library with no undergraduates and 3 types of user - taught masters students, PhD students and staff.

Our MSc students have a limit of 14 ILLs per year free of charge and this seems to work fine. In the few years I've done the ILLs no one has tried to go over or questioned the limit. (As a health library we're also able to source quite a few ILLs for free from the NULJ scheme which keeps our BL costs down)

PhD students are entitled to 'unlimited' ILLs but 'at the discretion' of the library so we have the final word in principle though actually we've never really had to rein anyone in, at least in my time here.

Staff mostly order ILLs with a project budget code to charge to. But they're also able to request ILLs free of charge for 'other purposes' including bid preparation, professional development and teaching preparation. There's no set limit for these but no one has ever been excessive. People will make a couple of requests now and again.

Our separate departmental library and its ILLs service exist because of the type of work/study done in ScHARR and the dept has a separate fund to cover the free ILLs (separate from our book funding). We're totally independent of the main University of Sheffield Library in both operation and funding. (they have their own ILLs service for the rest of the uni)

In short we don't have a problem with abuse of the free of charge ILLs services on offer (but having library discretion is a reassuring backup). We have the occasional non-collection but not often. Being only postgrads may make a difference!

Good luck with yours!

Magda

On Thu, 14 Mar 2019 at 15:21, DOCUMENT-DELIVERY U.L. <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear All,

                The hoary old chestnut of making ILL requests free of charge to our readers has raised its head once more, so I thought that I’d write to the list to find out what the current feeling is. Searching through the archived LIS-ILL mailbase emails it looks like Natalie Guest last asked the group in January 2017, so it will be interesting to see if this is becoming a more popular option as students become increasingly demanding.

I’m hoping that you can help because trying to guess the outcome of changing our charging policy is virtually impossible as there is no way to guess how students might react if it suddenly becomes free. I’m especially concerned because in the past we had a cohort which was given 20 “free” requests and by golly were they going to use them all, whether they needed them or not! Giving people an open-ended allowance could actually result in fewer requests since they’re not focusing on a specific number. I really don’t know at this stage.

Can I ask those libraries out there who do not charge their readers for ILL requests:

·         Did you see a jump in the number of requests when you stopped charging?

·         Do you set limits to the number of free requests?

·         Are there any types of requests (or patrons) where you would still charge?

·         Have you now got a problem with uncollected items?

·         Lastly (and probably a naive question) how did you change your funding to cover the extra expenses? At present in Durham we have an income from users and the library foots the rest of the bill from an ILL budget which is kept strictly separate from the book spending. Did you get extra funding from central finance, or do you somehow charge back to the relevant departments?

Maybe I should also ask if there is anyone out there who has had free requesting in the past, but had to give it up? And if so, why?

I’d be really interested in all your answers and comments and I’ll summarise responses later for the list.

Yours sincerely,

Judith Walton,
Document Delivery Service Supervisor,
Durham University,

Bill Bryson Library
Stockton Road,
Durham.
DH1 3LY

United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0) 191 334 2946

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Magda Bell

Document Supply Service

Information Resources Group

Health Economics and Decision Science

ScHARR

University of Sheffield

Regent Court

30 Regent Street

Sheffield

S1 4DA

Hours of work: Tues 9.45 - 4.00, Wed 9.45 - 5.30, Fri 9.45 - 5.00

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