ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


January 1990 / 23

compiled. W hen this project was initiated, some of 
the collection development and public services 
administrators wanted to im plem ent a priority sys­
tem  for CIC requests which they believed would 
improve both turnaround time and fill rates. The 
interlibrary loan librarians objected, indicating that 
the effect of establishing a separate routine for CIC 
would be an overall deterioration of service. T h ere­
fore, the priority was placed locally on improving 
service overall. Clearly, that has been more suc­
cessful in some institutions than in others, and it is 
an area requiring further discussion and attention.

The interlibrary loan librarians were asked to 
provide their perceptions of average turnaround 
time for receipt of requests as data on turnaround 
time was not collected. Nine indicated the range 
was from 1-2 weeks, while two said 2 -3  weeks. 
Seven indicated that turnaround time was inade­
quate. All participants agree that delivery alterna­
tives to the U.S. mail needed to be explored. The 
most obvious suggestions were the use of United 
Parcel Service (UPS) and telefacsimile equipment. 
As noted previously, a telefax experiment was b e ­
gun recently. The delivery system within the state 
of Illinois was specifically cited as a model to be 
explored.

Workflow

Eight institutions responded that the project 
resulted in work-flow changes—some positive and 
some negative. The positive changes included 
streamlining some procedures and reduced billing 
and invoicing operations. Several have had to keep

statistics not required before.

Financial impact

Many libraries indicated that they were spend­
ing less money to borrow material, although few 
could provide specific figures. One library indi­
cated a savings of only $200-$400 while two re ­
ported savings of $13,000 and $14,000. It was 
difficult to determ ine if interlibrary lending reve­
nues had declined because each institution’s over­
all lending activity had increased. Three libraries 
indicated no decline, four indicated a slight d e­
cline, and four indicated declines o f $4,000- 
$12,000.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this project was judged to be 
worthwhile both in term s of improving resource 
sharing and in terms of communication among 
counterpart groups (interlibrary loan, collection 
development, public services) in CIC institutions 
by ILL librarians, public services, collection devel­
opm ent librarians and directors. A num ber of 
enhancem ents have been suggested, including a 
faster delivery/turnaround time, participation by 
all libraries on a particular campus, and the use of 
technological developments such as the possible 
use of C IC N et instead of regular telephone voice 
lines for telefacsimile transmission. As the project 
proceeds, ways to improve performance and speed 
delivery will continue to be discussed and im ple­
mented. ■  ■

Letters

Physics journals

To the Editor:
I would like to point out an apparent error in 

Katharine Clark and William Kinyon’s article, “The 
Interdisciplinary Use of Physics Journals,” F e b ru ­
ary 1989, pp. 145-50. In Table 3 (coverage of 36 
physics journals by 8 major indexes), Chemical 
Abstracts is shown as not covering a num ber of 
titles. Searching the CAS Online file’s source field 
(/so) with journal abbreviations and limiting re ­
trieval to publications dated 1983-1985 gives the 
following: Classical & Q uantum  G ravity (57 
a rtic le s ), N u evo  C im e n to  (1,493 a rtic le s ), 
Zeitschrift f ü r  Physik— B (407 articles).

Please also note that strictly speaking CAS does 
not cover English translations of foreign-language

journals. This, because as a m atter of policy they 
abstract the foreign-language publication. Your 
readers will be interested in the following figures 
(for 1983-1985): Pisma Zh Eksp Teor Fiz (]ETP 
Letters) 933 articles, Tad Fiz (Soviet J Nucl Phys) 
(1,402 letters), Fiz Elem Chastits Yad (Sov J Part 
Nucl) (82 articles), and Zh Eksp Teor Fiz (Sov 
Phys—JETP) (949 articles).

Those results argue very strongly for searching 
CAS Online for “physics” questions. At Caltech, 
CAS Online is searched routinely for virtually all 
science and engineering questions (except for pure 
mathematics), in conjunction with searches in 
other databases (such as Inspec, Biosis, Medline, or 
the SCI).—Dana L. Roth, Head, Science & Engi­
neering Libraries, California Institute o f Technol­
ogy, Pasadena. ■  ■



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