College and Research Libraries Interlibrary Loans: A Symposium T HREE OF THE following five papers-those by ] ames G. Hodgson, Carl H. Melinat, and Walter W. Wright-were presented at the meeting of the University Libraries Section, ACRL, ] anuary 30, 1952. The paper by Dr. Hodgson and Mr. Kidder was prepared earlier. Miss Lucy's paper is a condensation of a study recently completed at Columbia University. Following the papers is the "General Interlibrary Loan Code, 1952," prepared by the ACRL Committee on Interlibrary Loans. By JAMES G. HODGSON A Preliminary Report on Interlibrary Loan Costs Dr. Hodgson) who has been the director of libraries of Colorado A & M College, Fort Collins, Colorado) since 1936, did much of the work on the study here reported while on sabbatical leave at the University of Illinois Library School during 1950-51. T HERE COMES a time in every man's life, particularly if he is a library administra- tor, when the one question he wants to ask is "What are the facts?" Usually his only answer is a guess, an estimate, or a logical deduction based on uncertain premises. Prob- ably it will be a long time before the library administrator will have all of the facts he should have as a basis for some of his de- cisions, but this afternoon it is my purpose to report on one effort to arrive at some facts which will be useful to that administrator. Interlibrary loans are a fairly small aspect of library operations, but they are basic and fundamental because if libraries are to get all material available to all students and scholars, it will only be through the medium of inter- library loans, or some of the substitutes which are now being used. If we are to know how best to operate our necessary system of inter- library cooperation, it seems logical to start looking for facts on some one element which is basic, and yet which can be isolated for study. The resulting study of the costs of interlibrary loans started out to be a one-man undertaking, covering a limited number of libraries, but the interest and cooperation of the ACRL Committee on Interlibrary Loans OCTOBER, 1952 swelled the project to cover-as of the present -2,357 transactions in 32 libraries and two Bibliographical Centers in the Middle-West, the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific North-West and California. The project was planned to study every possible ramification of this spe- cific subject, and to find out every possible influence that might have an effect on costs. The result was a complex study which re- quired considerable time and care in the col- lecting of data and put the researcher under a deep obligation to the staffs of all the vari- ous libraries which so willingly cooperated. However, the size to which the project grew made it too much to complete in any single year of study, and as a result it now is suffer- ing from the slow progress inherent in any "leisure time project" of a busy administrator. As a one-man project there were obviously certain things which could not be done in con- nection with the study to insure its statistical soundness. As a matter of fact before the first tabulations, or the writing of the "first dictated draft" of the report (the parts so far done come to some r8o pages, but there should be another 400 pages to come) an effort was made to estimate all of the possible sources of error which might exist in the study. The description of these elements came to seven double spaced typewritten pages so anyone who wants to criticize the project from a re- search angle should find plenty of ammunition ready at hand. However, as the tabulation of the data continues, it seems apparent that ~hile errors do exist they either cancel them- 327 selves out, or are of such small magnitude as not to unduly influence the results.1 One specific instance of where costs may be used by the administrator will suffice to illus- trate why they are important. Where inter- library cooperation is full blown and the individual libraries are able to hold up their end in such cooperation by having adequate collections in their own specialties, the decision on whether to borrow or to buy may well be an economic one. In other words how many loans will be necess a ry to make those costs equal the costs of acquiring, cataloging and storing any particular volume? Without any adequate figures to guide me , I once estimated that if any particular book or any individual volume of a serial was borrowed four times in six years that it be more economical to own that specific volume. As a result of the study here being reported that estimate may be re- vised. It will not be necessary here to go into any explanation of how many different processes or activities any single interlibrary loan goes through, or what some of the academic prob- lems of costs are. Much of that information is covered in the "progress report" which was issued last July. 2 It will be sufficient to say that the forms which were used to collect the data recorded the time taken, and material and transportation costs, for every activity that had any direct connection with the mak- ing of the interlibrary loans, but many costs which may be called "joint costs" were not considered. Those who are interested in mak- ing studies themselves may secure samples of the forms used, and copies of the instructions. If copies of the "progress report" are no longer available when asked for , copies have been sent to all library schools on the ALA list, and to each land-grant college or uni- versity, and should be available on interlibrary }.a an . ,- Several attempts h ave been made in the past to secure some idea of the cost of interlibrary loans. In 1930, before the dollar devaluation era, Hand of the University of California re- ported that the average cost of interlibrary 1 ?'he method or. organi zation of the s tudy, and a n out h ne of the posstble sources of errors a re giv en in : Hodg~on, Ja~JieS G. A Prog ress R eport on a Stt{dy of I n terhbrary L oan Costs. Fort Collins, Colo. , I 951 . I 7 p. p rocessed. (Colora do A & M College. L ibra r y . Libr a r y bulletin 22.) 2 I bid., p. 2-6. loans was $1.59. 3 In 1932 Brown came to the conclusion that the total cost of interlibrary loans, including costs both ways was $3.56.4 In 1936 Rider estimated that the labor costs alone in his library were $1.11. 5 In 1949, with the dollar well devaluated, David of the U ni- versity of Pennsylvania estimated that inter- l'brary loans cost his library $3.50 on the average, and for the completed transaction arrived at a cost of $7.00. 6 There is some question as to the basis on w hich interlibrary loan costs should be figured. All transactions started are not completed, yet the cost of initiating procedures, even though books and periodicals are not secured, are a part of the costs to the library. It is therefore possible to fix the average cost, either on the basis of the number of transactions started , or the number of transactions completed. The average cost of the number of transactions started seems most logical because that figure is of importance to an administrator who must figure the costs on the basis of the persons coming to his library to request interlibrary loans. However, the figures have also worked out on the basis of transactions completed for the benefit of those who keep their records in that fashion. In the study made, four different types of transactions are recognized: ( 1) requests sent by a library to a bibliographical center; ( 2) transactions which arise from the pas- sage of those requests through the bibliograph- ical centers; ( 3) loans of books by a lend- ing library, irrespective of whether the re- quest came directly from a library or from a bibliographical center; and (4) transactions where the borrowing library sends requests directly to the lending library without any intermediary. This is done quite often in bibliographical center territory when it would · result in lower costs, and of course is the only type of transaction possible where there is no bibliographical center available. In all 203 requests, of which 169 were com- pleted, went to a bibliographical center. These 3 H a nd, Eleanor. " A Cost Survey in a U nivers ity Li · bra r y," L ibrar y Jour nal, 55:763 -66, October I, I930. (See p. 766. ) 4 Brown , Ch a rles H . . " Inter-Libra ry Loans : an Un · solved P robl em," Library Journal, 57 :887-89 , November r, 1932. ( See p. 88 7-88. ) 3 R ide r , F re mont. " Libra r y Cost A ccounting," Li· brary Qt,arterly, 6 :33 1-8r, ·October , I 936. (S ee p . 35 9. ) 6 D avid , Cha rles W. " Remarks u pon Interlibra r y Loa n s, Mi d-2o th Century Style," College and RPsParc/r Libraries, IO :429-33 , October I 949· (See p. 43 1.) COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES ~----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 203 cases cost on an average $1.095 each. If calculated by the number completed, the cost amounts to $1.315 for each transaction. This is of course the direct cost to the borrowing libraries. The Bibliographical Centers han- dled 242 requests from the college or univer- sity libraries in the study, during the period when data was collected. The average cost to these centers was $0.5 r. If the borrowing library, as a part of its membership, pays the actual cost of using the center, the total cost to · the borrowing library is therefore the cost in the library, and the cost at the center, or $r.6I per transaction started or $1.83 for each one completed. There were 804 cases where the borrowing libraries made applica- tions directly to the lending libraries. Of these 646 were completed. Here the cost was $1.37 for each transaction started, or $1.71 for each one completed. Thus when the cost of the borrowing library, and that of the bibliographical center, are added together it would seem to cost more to use that method of borrowing, but later in discussing errors some explanation of that situation will be found. As a matter of fact, considering time alone, requests sent through the bibliographi- cal center cost about So cents per transac- tion started, while it costs only 63 cents for requests made directly to the lending library. There is a general feeling that it costs as much to lend as to borrow. The overall figures do not substantiate that belief. Of course the cost of transportation to the bor- rowing library must also be considered but that does not tell the whole story. In all I 108 requests were made on the lending libraries in the period studied, and 947 of them were granted. The cost per transac- tion works out at $0.59 for all requests and $o.6g per completed loan. This is less than half of the cost to the borrowing library when transportation costs are included. The dif- ferences, when time and materials costs alone are considered, are not as great but are marked. Thus the 59 cents for the lending library compares to 87 cents when material is borrowed through a bibliographical center, and 74 cents when it is borrowed directly. If, as will be pointed out later, costs due to errors or incomplete entr-ies could be elimi- nated, the costs to the lending library would be much reduced, and the differences would be much greater between the borrowing and lending libraries. OCTOBERJ 1952 The total cost of the 2357 transactions studied came to $2103.485. Of this amount 64.3 per cent was for staff time, 9·5 per cent was for materials used and 26.2 per cent was for transportation. The amount spent for materials was so small that there are no great possibilities for savings there, although the use of post cards and the reuse of some types of mailing bags could reduce the cost by a few cents. When it is realized that the average cost of shipments by express is $2.07, and that by parcel post but 33 cents, it is evident that a considerable reduction in cost is possible if more extensive use could be made of parcel post. Because 64.3 per cent of the cost of interlibrary loans is for staff time, it seems probable that if costs are to be reduced, the most promising avenue of ap- proach is that of labor costs. Until it is possible to analyze the 'individual processes in detail, it will not be desirable to make any recommendations on methods, but it might be noted that in certain cases it seemed clear that professional help was often doing certain operations that could be done more advan- tageously by non-professional help. In cer- tain obvious cases professional help was needed because of the difficulties encountered, but as a casual observation it may be said that very often too much professional help was used consistently on some processes that were more nearly clerical in character. While much "raw data" has been worked out for many of the different angles to be studied, in only one direction has sufficient work been done to justify any public pro- nouncements. The effect of errors or omis- sions in citations on costs seems, at this moment, to be definitive. It is certainly possi- ble to reduce the cost of interlibrary loans at the borrowing library level by not verifying requests or otherwise checking for accuracy. Until I have been able to check through some individual transactions which contained errors. or omissions, it will not be possible for me to say exactly how much the individual libraries saved by not completely verifying the items desired. However, at the bibliographical centers, and in the lending libraries, records were made of incomplete entries or errors in the citations and it is possible to determine whether or not these transactions were more expensive. Before reporting these data, however, a little background may be desirable. Most 329 librarians recognize the classical statement by Hicks that in I9I3 8o per cent of the re- quests received at Columbia University were unnecessarily incomplete and inaccurate. 7 Miss Winchell said that for the same library from October, I929 to March, 1930, 6o per cent of the requests for loans received were either incomplete or inaccurate.8 A study made by Kidder covering data on requests made at the University of Illinois Library from November through December, I936 found that nearly all of the requests were lacking in some respects from a perfect biblio- graphical entry. 9 Of the 520 titles which he investigated there was an average of 2.65 errors or omissions per title. For the books this was 2.04, for serials 3·3 I and for theses 2.03. It might be noted that in the case of book titles out of 474 errors or omissions 374 or 79 per cent were omissions. Only 13 per cent were inaccuracies, and 5 per cent were misspellings, some of them serious and some of them not as important. Because these Kidder data had implications for the study undertaken, the original data were reworked and classified, as a result of personal experience, according to the proba- bility of excess time being taken for identi- fication of the items. As a result it was found that 8 per cent of the requests con- tained errors or omissions which could be con- sidered "serious." Another 24 per cent contained errors or omissions that could be considered only as "troublesome," while for 20 per cent they were definitely of a minor nature. Thus 52 per cent of the requests contained errors which it was felt might influence the actual costs of identifying the materials re- quested. The errors in the other 48 per cent of the requests were not considered of suffi- cient nature to require extra time in locating the desired materials. This tabulation was of particular interest when it was found that 10.6 per cent of the transactions handled by bibliographical centers or by lending libraries contained errors or omissions of sufficient magnitude to cause them to be recorded on the record sheets, or to make it n~cessary to take . time to verify the requests. One of the reasons why it cost 7 Hicks, F. C. "Inter-Library Loans," Library Jour- nal. 38 :71·, February 1913. s Winchell, Constance M. Locating Books for Inter- libnry Loan. New York, H. W. Wilson, 1930, p. 15. 9 See Hodgson, James G. and Kidder, Robert W., in this issue. more to send requests through a bibliographi- cal center was obviously due to the fact that difficult problems were routed in that direc- tion whereas simple requests, which presented no such difficulties or problems, were sent directly to the lending libraries. As a matter of fact 29.0 per cent of all requests to bibli- ographical centers showed errors or omissions of some sort whereas but 4-5 per cent of those sent directly to libraries, from libraries which had bibliographical centers available, con- tained such errors. Institutions which were not in any center territory showed that I0.9 per cent of the requests which came to them had such errors. For libraries in areas served by bibliograph- ical centers many of the requests had al- ready been checked in bibliographical centers. It would then be expected that a smaller per- centage of such requests would need to be veri- fied. A check showed that there were only six such requests which contained errors and that four of these were difficulties with the authors and titles of specific articles in serials, difficulties which could be found only when the actual serial itself was handled for the loan. However, this interesting thing was found. If the requests which came from bibliographical centers to libraries were elim- inated, it was found that the requests which came directly from libraries in areas with bibliographical centers contained errors or omissions in I 1.5 per cent of all requests. This compares with the I0.9 per cent of errors or omissions in all requests made to libraries in non-bibliographical center areas. The subdued mutinous mutterings, and on occasion the outright blasts and forthright statements, with which interlibrary loan as- sistants have been known to greet requests which were incomplete or contained errors have some justification according to the re- sults from this study. In bibliographical centers the average cost per transition handled was $0.51 1. Entries which coqtained errors actually cost $0.746 to handle, and it was then found that those without errors cost only $0.458 for each transaction. In other words those entries with errors cost 62.9 per cent more to handle than did those without errors. Interestingly those with errors took 72.7 per cent more time than those without errors although the time cost was only 64.I per cent greater. The situation was not quite as bad :330 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES at the lending libraries. While the average cost for handling transactions received was $0.591, the cost for handling entries with errors was $o. 777 each. This last figure then compares with the average cost of handling the transactions without errors of $0.577. Thus in the lending libraries the cost of such errors only increased the cost per transaction by 34·7 per cent. Time taken was up 35·3 per cent over the requests without errors but the cost of time, due largely to use of more skilled workers made an increase of 38.1 per cent. However in a large establishment, which handles an enormous number of inter- library loans each year, this increase of one- third in cost would amount to no small sum during a year. It is, of course, obvious that the errors which would be recorded on the data gather- ing sheets would naturally be those which were most bothersome to the searchers in the catalogs and that many errors which were irritating but not too time consuming would be disregarded, particularly if they occurred in later parts of the entry and were not noted until after the proper item had been located. As a result it is not surprising that 76.7 per cent of the errors noted in requests for books were found in the author entry. The next largest number was 16.7 per cent in the titles. The third most important location for such errors as were noted was the series note in books where 5 per cent was located. This distribution of location of error shows an in- teresting deviation from the findings in the Kidder report mentioned above. 10 Since serial publications have an author only when they are regular issues of some society or governmental body, it is not surprising that in the case of serials 46.7 per cent of the errors were found in the title of the serial being searched-13.3 per cent were in the author entry. Those two combined made up a total of 6o per cent of all the errors noted. However here some 20 per cent of the· re- corded errors had something to do with the imprint or collation of the serial, whereas iss~eSee Hodgson, J. G. and Kidder, Robert W. in this OCTOBER, 1952 another 20 per cent was found in the lack of an author or title for the specific articles in the needed serial. Since it was these errors in both the bibliographical centers and the lending libraries which caused the greatest amount of increase in cost, it is obvious that there is considerable need for encouraging libraries to be more careful with their citing of authors of books and titles of serials. Mention of the type of errors that went to bibliographical centers and the variations in costs prompt a short statement on the place of the bibliographical center in interlibrary loans. Obviously the difficult requests had been sent to the centers and there is some evidence, as yet not completely worked out in detail, to the effect that they were sent there after the borrowing library had spent somewhat more time than usual in an effort to identify the particular item desired. After all, one of the functions of the bibliographical center is to identify certain of these difficult references where adequate tools are not available in the library which wishes to borrow the material. Since the activities of the bibliographical center are paid for by the member libraries·, it is perfectly proper to send such difficult questions through the bibliographical center and to pay for· proper identification there rather than to send those same requests to the lending library and to let that library bear the cost of identification. The fact that re- quests coming from bibliographical centers to the lending libraries contained such a small number of errors is an indication of the use- fulness of that type of organization. Although a very careful search was made for all possible literature containing facts relating to interlibrary loans before the study was made, additional studies or reports which contained material that helps to illuminate the findings of this larger study are constantly being reported. It will be some time before the study is completed and in the meantime any such studies which are to be found in various libraries, or in the library schools, but which have not yet been reported in Library Literature would certainly be grist to the mill and I should be pleased if you could send me copies of any which you know to exist. 331 By WALTER W. WRIGHT Interlibrary Loan- Smothered in Tradition Mr. Wright is assistant librarianJ Service DivisionJ University of Pennsylvania Library. I W HEN 1 WAS invited to prepare this paper, my first thought for a title was "Regional Liberalization of Interlibrary Loan." My local critics, however, protested that this was rather a mouthful, and accord- ingly the title was changed to "Interlibrary Loan-Smothered in Tradition." Now it is a bit curious, unless explanation be offered, that I should in 1952 take such a title when my chief, Charles W. David, spoke before the ACRL College Libraries Section in 1949 on the topic "Interlibrary Loans Mid-2oth Century Style." 1 Actually, there is no discrep- ancy between our approaches, and I shall re-· turn to Dr. David's proposals before I finish. I cannot appropriately refer to interlibrary .loan as smothered in tradition unless I fore- stall some criticism by stating at the outset that I am well aware that much progressive thinking is going on in various parts of the country, and that this has produced effective and cooperative arrangements centering, among other plac~s, around the various bibli- ographical centers and those institutions on the west coast which have been active on the ACRL Interlibrary Loan Committee. Other institutions, among them some government and state agencies, have also been active and devised interlibrary loan forms that fit into a conventional charge file. It is my impres- sion, however, that most of us have been fol- lowing traditional costly procedures; and that until the new interlibrary loan request forms came along, in turn followed by the prelim- inary draft of a new ALA interlibrary loan code which many of us have seen, we have done little fundamental probing of the prob- lem. At the University of Pennsylvania our policy and experimentation have led us into channels which may interest you . An inter- library loan librarian soon comes to sense the attitudes of the institutions with which he is 1 David, Charles W. "Remarks upon Interlibrary Loans Mid-2oth Century Style," College and R esearch Libraries, xo:429-433, October 1949. dealing, and to categorize them as "helpful," "liberal," "holier-than-thou," "difficult," "petty," or "stuffy." It will be useful and perhaps revealing to us at Penn~·ylvania if those of you who have had dealings with us would accept my invitation to write to me and tell me where you have classified us. If we fall into the holier-than-thou, difficult, petty, or stuffy classifications, we want to know it, and why. We know that some of you were not wholly happy about some of our simplified postal card forms, and sheet of instructions, even though they were designed to save work for recipient and sender alike. II Let us now consider a few ~f the tradi- tional procedures of interlibrary loan which detract from its usefulness. It is obvious first that not all institutions represented here will agree with me, and second, that it does not necessarily follow that they can be classi- fied as stuffy. Further, unilateral criticism of specific practices cannot take into account all extenuating circumstances in various institu- tions. One cannot criticize those large insti- tutions that lend generously and that bear a large share of the country's lending load as stuffy merely because they require that all their materials be used within the borrowing library. By virtue of this restriction, some of them will assert, they can be even more liberal in lending than would otherwise be the case. But one suspects that a dominating motive is that of protecting the book and of being assured of its immediate availability in the event of what the interlibrary loan code calls "summary recall." This protest against this "building use" restriction is based on a con- sideration of the reader whom we are trying to serve. The faculty member or scholar does not always have an office in the library build- ing with easy or convenient access to the department which has custody of the loans; all his books and papers are somewhere else. He may live miles . away. The "building use only" requirement more often than not is an unnecessary imposition on the reader and an additional detail for a busy service desk to be 332 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES concerned with. It is further unsound from this point of view: that the perpetual policing of 999 loans in order to forestall the trouble the roooth may cause is ipso facto the wrong approach. To be sure, there are classes of material-rare, unique, or fragile, which any librarian would be derelict to let circulate freely, and they are excluded from this argu- ment; but for the bulk of the material such blanket restrictions seem to me to serve no useful purpose. The instances of summary recall seem rarely to arise. Unless an item be specifically exempted by either lending or borrowing library, why not give the latter responsibility for determining where an item can be used? Much good and little harm should result from such practice. There will be those who will declare that it is no business of a borrowing library how the lender chooses to ship. It may not be its business, but it is certainly its concern ~hen express charges are compared with ordinary book or library book postal rates. It is hard to argue with the librarian who says he will not send a bobby-soxer to the post office ( un- less that office be just around the corner) when the Railway Express agency will call at his desk, but it is harder to justify the bor- rower being asked to use express to return the book when the circumstances do not warrant it. Can not more books go by parcel post than now do? We are overconcerned with protecting our books from every conceivable mishap; we at Pennsylvania have had no worse experience with books sent through the mails than with those shipped by express. Incidentally, when you do ship by express, do you insist on the special book rate which is one half the first class rate up to a $ro valuation? Insurance is another me~ .. ~er in which many of us have been inclined to use traditional procedures unthinkingly. If a library has a sufficient volume of business it may find that an annual parcel post insurance policy costing $50 is cheaper than coupon insurance or postal insurance. All the library need do is keep . a running record of shipments in ·a ruled book provided by the insurance company. lif' may find that a rider attached to an all-covering fine arts policy can cover books borrowed (or lent) on interlibrary loan. Or it may find that it will . save money by .l;>eing its own insurer, and not buying insura~~e at all ex- OCTOBER~ 1952 cept for items of special value. There seems to be a trend in this last direction which will bear investigating by those who follow the more conventional methods. Collection of postal charges is another small but traditional part of interlibrary loan. It is proper that carriage charges should be borne by the borrowing library (or, according to its policy, by its reader). And yet the carriage costs constitute but a small part gf interlibrary loan costs, emphasized probably because they are easily measured and repre- sent out-of-pocket expense. We have received postal cards stating that we owed small amounts like 13 or 16 cents. We were sorry that we failed to return this postage but it was hard to avoid the conclusion that our colleague libraries had spent much more than the amounts claimed collecting them. The new ALA forms will simplify the matter of recording and refunding postage, and ought to result in the abolition of elaborate running accounts ·of postage spent and owed in li- braries all over the country. I should like also to present the provocative proposition that we are often overcareful in refusing to lend rare books. Between insti- tutions that maintain active rare book collec- tions based on a concept of research and serv- ice rather than on the mere treasure room concept of storage, such loans can be made with safety. The point is th~t a rare book curator who knows the personnel and the · conditions under which a book will be used in another library can give an. affirmative answer to a request when a negative one might ordi- narily be expected. There are a number of institutions that have rare book experts on their staffs and we should be disposed to view favorably interlibrary loan requests for rare books from such institutions, though we should ~pply -the restriction that the books be used in tlieir rare book rooms : The withholding of interlibrary loan ship- ments during the Christmas mailing rush makes some sense, but let us not carry it to the extreme of suspending operations as early as November 12, as has been known to happen. Interlibrary loan for the large libraries has long since outgrown the hand-tailored excep- tional transaction, handled personally by the chief librarian in his office. But the little amenities linger. It is nice to get a personal 333 note of appreciation and may we never forget that courtesy is involved in any interlibrary loan. But in our defense of the amenities let us not regret the passing of pretty phrases on the new interlibrary loan form. The ACRL committee recommended that correspondence be addressed to the interlibrary loan librar~an only, omitting the name of an individual, and yet several libraries which have adopted the new forms, and have had the institutional names printed thereon, cannot resist also typ - ing the names of the individuals involved. One interlibrary loan librarian declared that he was accustomed to warm up-to get into practice, so to speak-on the twenty-seven- letter name of Pennsylvania's interl{brary loan librarian, but I have told her that there will be wide rejoicing by those who do not have to t ype her long name over and over , time and time again. III In I94I, a supplement to the ALA inter- library loan code was drawn up by a commit- tee· of reference librarians for use in the Philadelphia area. In I 95 I, a revision of this code to conform to the local practice as it had developed among us was drawn up by a 1com- mittee of representatives from · five of the colleges and universities in the region. The draft received correction and approval at a meeting of tjle College and Reference Section of the Pennsylvania Library Association and was endorsed by the executive board of the Special Libraries Council of Philadelphia and · Vicinity. The new code liberalizes several points and in certairt procedures to which some institutions were unwilling to subscribe, suggests alternatives. We were able to build into the code several of the more friend ly practices that have developed in the past few years and we hope that the code will exert a softening inftu~nce. Naturally, a local code can be more liberal than a national code; for we are better acquainted with our near neigh- bors, and the personal element often enters. Perhaps our local code offers possibilities for use in other similar areas, especially in aca- demic circles. The first deviation from the ALA I940 code occurs in the opening sentence. The ALA code reads thus, "The primary purpose of the interlibr.ary loan service is to aid re- search calculated to advance the boundaries of knowledge by the loan of unusual books." The Philadelphia code asserts, "The primary purpose of local interlibrary loan is to facili- tate the use of books where they are needed." Both codes then follow the opening clause with the qualifying restriction, "after due pro- vision has been made for the rights and con- venience of the immediate constituents of th.e lending library." The local code adds, "it is desirable that the needs of serious readers and students should be satisfied as completely as possible through such local interlibrary loan." The ALA code states, "Some libraries may find it desirable to lend material for other than research purposes to institutions within their own territory or toward which they have some particular obligation. Such transactions should be considered as part of an extension service rather than as inter- library loan." Orie of the difficulties of this latter provision, locally at least, was that the interlibrary loan concept was too strongly ingrained to be so easily given up and almost all transactions were recorded as interlibrary loans. Even when students came to us from neighboring institutions bearing letters of in- troduction with requests for books, the loans were charged not to the students but to their libraries. Here is the suggested procedure of what was termed "direct borrowing." ~ , · a. The student presents a letter from a li- brarian indicating either specific title wanted or the type of study engaged in. b. If the library allows the student to borrow the books needed, it charges them to the student's library as it would any other interlibrary loan, adding also the name of the student. c. The lending library notifies th~ student's library of the books borrowed and the date due. The student should return the book but the lending library holds the student's library re- spon sible for its safe return. d. Upon return of the books borrowed, the lending library notifies the student's library of their return. Even this timid step was in the right direc- tion but a real service spirit was still stifled by detail. All that was saved ~as packing, mailing, and collection of transportation charges, inasmuch as the student acted as his own messenger. A new paragraph in the revised code reads thus: Readers should generally be expected to VISit the libraries within the city for needed books unless such procedure is exceptionally incon- venient. For those libraries which will accept 334 . COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES direct student borrowing, alternative procedures are outlined as follows: a. The student presents a letter from an au- thorized librarian indicating either specific title wanted or the type of study engaged in. b. If the library allows the student to borrow the books needed, it charges them to the student. If the lending library has any trouble with the student over the return of the books or unpaid fine, the library of the student's institution should be notified at once. If disciplinary action is re- quired, the student's library will initiate neces- sary action for the lending library. c. Those libraries which are unwilling to lend directly to a student on his own responsibility may still be willing to let him act as his own messenger, although making the transaction an interlibrary loan. Confirmation of the loan should be made to the student's library if either library desires. · The effect is to relieve both libraries of unneeded duplication of the records of these transactions. We thus avoid policing the local loans that cause no trouble, and call upon the student's own library only when diffi- culty arises. Such difficulties occur infre- quently and, kept in perspective against the number of loans, are as nothing (one student last year, for example, at each of three col- leges). Some suburban colleges have been unfailingly cooperative in helping us to re- cover books lent to their students and faculty. In other quarters, there seems to exist the feeling that any action taken for us amounts to an assumption of responsibility. We have been rather liberal in our interpretation of the "present a letter" clause. When a student travels miles and gives up an afternoon to seek out a book at Pennsylvania, we do not say, "Go back and get a note, and come again tomorrow," but usually let him have the book, telling him that on any subsequent visit he is expected to bring a letter from his own librarian. Only occasionally do we guess wrong. We allow undergraduates introduced by other librarians to use our library for a two-week period (although the loan period on their books may extend longer) ; and give graduate students from other libraries priv- ileges for the rest of the semester. Our local code gives a broader interpreta- tion of what constitutes the proper scope of interlibrary loan, as the following paragraphs (not in the ALA code) illustrate: ... Where a library is definitely committed to a certain subject or field, or places emphasis on OCTOBER, 1952 certain materials, it will promote the economical use of research materials if it will lend, regard- less of the price or date of individual items, to institutions not having sufficient demand to justify their purchase of such items. ... Although it is seldom the custom to lend books for classroom use, libraries may be will- ing to lend to small groups of honor students, graduate seminars, or other study groups. We changed the phrase "All oral requests should always be confirmed by letter" (which was tautological anyway), to "Oral requests should be confirmed by letter of the lending library wishes." This eliminated a lot of unnecessary paper work which had previously been part of the follow-up· of a telephone transaction. Pennsylvania has for years considered the acknowledgement of receipt of interlibrary loan packages an unnecessary step, but has felt obligated to conform to current practice when the books of other libraries were in- volved. We changed the local code statement: "Receipt of books borrowed should be ac- knowledged and when books are returned the lending library should so be informed," revis- ing it to read: "Receipt of a book need not normally be acknowledged unless specifically desired, except for rare items, but when a book is shipped a separate transmittal notice should always be sent." We were delighted to have the new interlibrary loan forms elimi- nate the acknowledgement formality. The University of Pennsylvania is fortu- nate to have housed in one of its buildings the Philadelphia Bibliographical Center and Union Library Catalogue. This is a non- profit corporation organized to provide and coordinate bibliographical services to the community. Its chief tools are the Union Library Catalogue of 3,soo,ooo cards describ- ing 6,ooo,ooo volumes in 171 libraries, and a national union catalog of microfilm. With the Union Library Catalogue, and several of our borrowing libraries, we have worked out arrangements by which a request for location made to the Catalogue automatically becomes an interlibrary loan request made to us, if the book is in our possession. Although the Philadelphia Catalogue does not execute the loans, as is the practice in some other regional centers, its procedure has reduced corre- spondence and cut the time involved by several days in our shipments to a half dozen librar- ies. We recognize that this service. can be extended even further. 335 In his paper, "Interlibrary Loans Mid- am inclined to believe that it arises chiefly be- 2oth Century Style," Dr. David proposed that books could often be mailed directly to a reader, with ' the request originating from the reader's own library. A few summers ago a graduate student away on vacation had to make a 300 mile round trip by train to Li- brary A to ~o~sult two books borrowed from Library B. There was· no reason other than the operation of tradition why Library B could not, at the request of Library A, have mailed those two books directly to the stu- dent at his summer address and have saved him the time and expense involved in the trip to the city. The University of Pennsyl- vania stands ready to act on such requests, assuming that they originate from authenti- cated sources, on behalf of responsible per- sons, and yet I have to report to you that since Dr. David delivered that paper, we have· not received one such request. IV If there be a crisis in interlibrary loan, I cause the increase in the volume of interlibrary loan requests has been superimposed on an unw~eldy and expensive procedure. I do not believe that the mere volume of business con- stitutes any cnsts. We must face the prob- lems, reducing costs per unit, at the same time rejoicing over this increased volume. Clearly, the multiplication of interlibrary lo~n trans- actions is itself a development its early ex- ponents could not have foreseen, but it is a development which mid-2oth-century librar- ians look upon with favor. The view of the service-minded librarian embraces the desire to be rated helpful and friendly; while he hopes that the difficult days, with procedures resembling those of registered mail, are over. If anything I have said should contribute to the easier exchange of interlibrary materials, through the elimination of practices still smothered in tradition, not only will the librarian be the gainer, but so also will be the scholar, he, "soul-hydropic with a sacred thirst." By JAMES G. HODGSON and ROBERT W. KIDDER Errors and Incomplete Entries in Interlibrary Loan Requests1 Dr. Hodgson is director of Ubraries, Colo- rado A & M College, and Mr. Kidder, assist_, ant, Circu!ation Department, University of Illinois Library. T HE LENDING of books between libraries, as so universally practiced in the United States, is not only an important method of making materials available to scholars and students in general, but, more specifically, it is linked with other current developments in interlibrary cooperation. As might be ex- pected when cooperation is practiced, difficul- ties arise at certain points. Melinat 2 re- 1 A summary of certain data and conclusions from: Kidder, Robert W. "The Verification of Interlibrary Loan Requests: a Four-fold Investi gation." 1947. 12'4 p. and Hodgson, James G. "Errors in Interlibrary Loan Requests: a Further Consideration of Certain Data from the Kidder Study." 49 p. Both manuscripts are in the University of Illinois Library School Library. 2 Melinat, Carl H. "The Administration of Inter- library Loans in American Libraries," Unpublished Master's thesis, Syracuse University, 1949, pp. 67-68, IJJ. ported in 1949 that, in answer to the question "What are your greatest problems in connec- tion with lending material to others?," 74 per cent of the replies from university libraries gave "unverified citations," as did 33·3 per cent of the college libraries and 40 per cent of the public libraries, for an over-all average of 55 per cent. In every group except the public libraries this difficulty was also the one most often mentioned. Yet 87 per cent of the libraries queried said that they at- tempted to verify all citations before making requests, and most of them felt that they veri- fied from go to 95 per cent of them. This contrasts with the 30 per cent of the univer- sity libraries, who say that most citations which come to them are verified and complete, while 6o per cent report that many are not verified and complete. For all libraries the percentages were 41 and 47. 3 Previous comments have indicated the 3 Ibid., pp. 57, IIO-I I. 336 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBR/JRIES TABLE I ERRORS IN REQUESTS FOR BooKs AND SERIALs BY LocATION AND TYPE14 (Not including 36 requests for theses and 7 unidentified items) . Location of Total No. of Error Requests Errors Per cent Books Author 67 . 14 Title 5I II Edition 13 3 Place 109 23 Publisher 141 30 Date 71 15 Volume 12 2 Series 6 I Contents 4 I Total 232 474. 100 Per cents 100 Serials Title 135 16 Place of Pub. 174 21 Volume 5I 6 Pagination 77 9 Date 201 24 Series 3 I Au thor of Article 83 10 Title of Article 109 13 Total 252 833 100 Per cents IOO Books & Serials Total 484 I ,309 Per cents IOO 14 Compiled from Kidder, op. cit., pp. 27, 28, 38, 39· seriousness of unverified . entries. In 1913 Hicks, 4 then assistant librarian of Columbia University, said that So per cent of the re- quests received were "unnecessarily incom- plete and inaccurate," while 'Winchell 5 found that at the same library during the period from October 1929 to March 1930 approxi- mately 6o per cent of the requests were in- complete and inaccurate. As a corollary it might be noted that Ewing6 in 1933 reported that while 10 college libraries-out of 29 queried-reported verifying go per cent of their requests before they were made, in 14 4 Hicks, F. C. "Inter-Library Loans," Library Journal, 38 :7r, February 1913. 5 Winchell, Constance M. Locating Books for Inter- library Loan. New York, H. W. Wilson, I9JO, p. rs. 6 Ewing, Marion J. "Borrowing from Our Neighbors," Library Journal, s8:9r8-23, November rs, 1933. OCTOBER, 1952 Errors Types of Errors per Om is- Misspell- lncom- lnaccu-Request sions ings pletions racies 39 9 4 15 17 25 - 9 12 - - I 106 - - 3 136 I - 4 46 - - 25 10 - - 2 6 - - - 2 - I I 2.04 374 35 5 6o 79 7 I 13 2 26 62 45 172 - - 2 45 - - 6 ' 75 - - 2 22 - 177 2 ' I 3 - - - 83 - - 99 - - II 3·31 501 26 239 67 6o 3 29 8 2.70 875 61 244 127 65 5 19 10 large libraries---.-all those queried-only 25 to So per cent were verified. Although the ALA Interlibrary Loan Code, Section 7, 1 reflects the common belief of libraries in verified entries, Kidder, as a re- sult of the survey of the literature from 1921 to 1946, found the some 6o papers to reflect "a commonly-held assumption_:_that the large lending libraries must necessarily assume the burden of verification of .interlibrary loan re- quests, inasmuch as the smaller libraries are not equipped with the bibliographic tools to do so." 8 7 "Interlibrary Loan Code," College and Research Libraries, 2:319, September 1941; also: "Proposed Inter- library Loan Code," ALA Bulletin, 34:200, March 1940; "Revised Code," Library Journal, 65 :803, October r, 194.0. s Kidder, op. cit., p. 8. 337 Errors and Incomplete Requests at Illinois Kidder checked the accuracy and complete- ness of all requests for loans at the University of Illinois Library between November I and December 3I, 1946. In those two months re- quests were received from I8o different li- braries for 527 titles, a number which was considered as a fair sample of the activities for a full year. Even the large number of requests from a few libraries-230 from 20 libraries-was typical. Over half, 62 per cent, of the libraries making requests were connected with colleges and universities, and accounted for 74 per cent of all loans. When special libraries and those connected with some governmental agency were included, the total came to 92 per cent of the libraries and 93 per cent of the requests. 9 Standards for judging completeness10 were based on the ALA Code11 and the recommendations of Hutchins1 2 and Winchell.13 According to these standards there was a total of I380 errors found in the 520 requests which could be identified, or an average of 2.65· errors per request. The largest number, 3·3 I per re- quest, was in those for serials. As shown in Table I, the greatest number of errors, 93 per cent, occurred in the five most common elements of an entry for a book: author, title, place, publisher, and date. It also shows that the bulk of the errors con- sisted of omissions, with two-thirds of the omissions being of place and publisher. Ac- tually those two elements accounted for one- half of all the errors in requests for books. Omissions in the author element may be serious. Of the 39 such omissions, I5 left out the forename, and Jhree left out the author's name completely. Under title, two of the omissions were fqr the whole of it, with the series given instead; three omitted dates from the title, which could cause confusion with similar titles. The nine misspellings in the author's name could have been serious, par- ticularly the three in the surname. The greater number of inaccuracies consisted of wrong dates of publication, while among the I5 u·nder author, one was an incorrect fore- 9 Calculated from . Kidder, op. cit., pp.Ig, 2 6, 37, 47, and Hodgson, op. c~t. , p. I4. 10 These standards are given in full in Kidder, o{J. cit. , pp. 22 · 24, 34·3 6, 44-45· 11 "Interlibrary Loan Code ," op. cit. 12 Hutchins, M a r garet. "Inter-Library Loans," L i - brar y J ournal, s o :go 2, Novelll-ber I, I9 25· 18 Winchell, op. cit ., pp. I 7- I 8. name, one an incorrect middle initial, seven were entries under editor in place of author, and three were under the wrong part of a compound name. Actually I 5 types of errors, I2 of them omissions of one type or another, accounted for 85 per cent of the errors in requests for books. 15 In serials, as with books, the bulk of the errors, 50I, or 6o per cent, consisted of omis- sions. It is only fair to state that the largest number of these omissions, I 72, included I44 omissions of the place of publication after the title of the serial, which is not one of the ele- ments considered as necessary by the ALA Code. The next three of the larger groups of omissions, author, title, and pagination of the individual articles, are most serious when microfilms or photostats are requested. But failure to include these elements makes it impossible, in any case, to be sure that the right volume has been sent. Naturally, it was impossible to tell whether any such errors had been made; and it was deemed impractical to verify the accuracy of the sitations as to author, title, and pagination for individual articles, when they were given. The majority of the inaccuracies in the titles of the serials requested (28 in all) were the giving of a title in a form other than that used in the Union List of Serials. Eleven of the inaccuracies were incorrect titles, most of them for foreign academy publications. In five cases the English translation of the title was given, which required retranslation back into the foreign language. All of the mis- spellings occurred in the title of the serial, and consisted mainly of inaccurate spelling of "Academy," "Society," and "Institution," m various foreign languages. Twenty-four of the 62 omissions under title were the use of abbreviations in place of full titles, another practice which can be misleading to the searcher. As in the case of books, omissions of one kind or another made up the six most fre- quently noted errors among the IO which accounted for 86 per cent of all errors. This compares with the I5 under books. Omission of month and day in the date was noted I 77 times, which constituted 2I per cent of all errors in the requests for serials. The I44 omissions of place following the title ac- 15 I bid., p . 3 I . 338 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES TABLE II ToTAL oF REQUESTS CLASSIFIED B.Y ·MosT SIGNIFICANT ERROR2o ~ -- -· Total _-;V , 'l;'r:ou- With- Re- Serious Per . ble- fer Minor Per Total Per out Per quests Errors cent some cent Errors cent Errors cent Errors cent __ j · Errors -- ~ -- -· ~·-:- ------------------ Books 233 14 6 76- 33 "Jo 30 16o 69 73 31 Serials 277 '29 II 41 I~ 2.5 9 95 34 182 66 Theses 36 3 8 15 42 12 33 30 83 6 17 ------------------------------ To tala 546 46 8 132 24 107 20 285 52 261 48 a Not including 7 unidentifiable requests, but including 26 requests for added material, calling for additional volumes of the same work, when included in the same letter. counted for another 17 per cent.16 Misspell- ings occurred in a greater proportion of the requests for books than in those for serials, both -in proportion to the number of titles, and in the number of errors made. In requests for theses the most often re- peated error was the omission of the name of the university, a not too important criterion, since in most cases it might be assumed that the request . was sent to the University of Illinois because the thesis was prepared there. Fifteen of the 16 errors in degrees were omissions, and one the citation of a wrong degree. Under title, seven were incomplete, four contained misspelled words, and two left the title out completely. In nine cases the date was omitted , and in four it was found to be incorrect. 17 Fewer errors were found in citations for Doctorate theses than for Mas- ters', probably because>-of the availability ·of tool~ for verification. One of the theses, called for as a Master's thesis; was found to have been an "Honors thesis" and was not on file in the library.1 8 Relative Difficulty of the Errors Puring the summer of 1950 the Kidder data was reworked by Hodgson to determine, if possible, any relationship between difficul- ties in identification of the requests and the types of material requested, and the -libraries from which the requests came. As a result, the errors were classified into four groups according to the apparent difficulty of identifi- cation, and each request was counted but once 1 no matter how many errors were noted in each request. The groups were as follows: 16 Ibid. , p. 42. 17 Ibid., p. 45· 18 Ibid., p. 47. OCTOBER_, 1952 1. Serious errors: Those which required tools other than the library catalog for verification, or the use of different parts of the catalog. 2. Troublesome errors: Those which would probably require additional time at the catalog, but which probably could have been figured in the same section of the catalog. 3· Minor errors: Those which could be cor- rected easily, or would cause little delay in the location of the call. number. · 4· Errors not counted: Those which were con- sidered of such small importance as not to hinder the work of the searcher.19 T.able II shows the total number . of re-: quests classified by the error most likely to give difficulty to the searcher. Here, perhaps, the most significant fact to be noted is . 'the high percentage of serious errors found in the serial requests, compared with the rela- tively low percentage when all errors are con- sidered. Size of the requesting library, taken alone, did not show a high dtgree of correlation with the percentage of requests which con- tained errors. While more requests per library were received from the larger librar- ies, it was found that the proportion with errors was not consistent. That is, 40 per cent of the requests from libraries containing 50o,ooo or ~ore volumes had errors, as com- pared to 49 per cent for those containing 200,000 to 499,999 volumes; 76 per cent for those containing 100,000 to 199,000 vo!umes; 58 per cent for those with collections . between· 50,000 and 99,999; and 71 per cent for those with collections of less than 50,000 voiumes. Yet the actual correlation between the sizes 19 For a full statement of the types of errors included under each of the headings, see Hodgson, op. cit., pp. 3-4. 20 Ibid., p. 7. 339 of the libraries and the percentages of re- quests with errors ranged from -.13 to -.23, according to the system · used, a far too low correlation to be significant. 21 Since in general the largest libraries were those connected with universities, and the smallest those connected with industry and with governmental agencies, it is interesting to note that only 26 per cent of the requests from university libraries contained errors of a serious or troublesome character, as compared to 56 per cent from the colleges, 50 per cent from the public libraries, and 32 per cent from the special libraries. 22 The implication of these facts seems to be that both the size anq the type of library have a relationship to the number of errors found in requests. The difficulty in the type d material re- quested could be supposed to have a relation- ship to the number of errors made. If this is so, literature in foreign languages should be indicative of the tendency. In all, 47 per cent of the requests were for foreign materials, and they accounted for 35 per cent of all the errors. Yet 40 per cent of the troublesome and serious errors combined, and 58 per cent of the serious errors, were found in the requests for foreign literature. 23 However, there was found to be a more definite inverse correlation between the size of the library and the number of errors in the foreign material, since for serious and troublesome errors it came to -.38 ±.oi while for serious errors alone it came to -.28 -+-.01. 24 As has been pointed out, 93 per cent of the requests received by the University of Illinois Library came from universities, colleges, spe- cial, and governmental libraries, the groups varying in size in that order. As pointed out, the colleges, the middle group in size, had the largest proportion of errors per request. They also asked for the smallest number of foreign language materials, in proportion to the number of requests, than did any other group of libraries, except the pt!blic librar- ies. 25 The inference is obvious: that while the size of libraries, type of libraries, and type of material asked for, all have an influ- ence on the kind and number of errors made in requests, the relationship is not clear cut. 2t Ibid. , p. 2 0. 22 Ibid. , p . 2 4 . 23 Ibid. , p . 26 . 24 Ib id., p. 27. 21! Ibtd., p, 3 I . Tools for Verifying Entries The bibliographical tools used for the veri- fication of entries· in Kidder's study were not selected in advance; instead, a list was com- piled of the various places in which complete entries for the titles requested could be found. Book entries were checked first against the most important national library catalogs, sec- ond, in national trade bibliographies, third, in the more important and inclusive subject bibliographies, and, fourth, in the general encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries. The 232 book titles were verified 650 times in all, in 76 different tools, ranging h:om the · LC Catalog of Books, verifying 126 titles, to a great many specialized sources which veri- fied but one entry each. 26 It is interesting to note that six national library catalogs between them verified 227 titles, or 35 per cent of the total, while 16 trade bibliographies included 216 titles, or 33 per cent. These two types of tools accounted for 443 verifications in all. Seven subject bibliographies accounted for 79 verifications, while four encyclopedias and dic- tionaries between them had 36. These 33 tools together accounted for 558 of the verifi- cations, or 86 per cent of the total. 2 7 In verifying serials, only those which could not be located in the Union List of Serials, 2d ed., we're checked in other sources. Since 247 of the titles were found there it was necessary to locate only five in other sources. Three were verified in the List of the Serial Publications 'of Foreign Governments, one in the LC Monthly Check List of State Publi- cations, and one in the Union List of Serials, Supplement, 1941-1943. No attempt was made to verify the ·authors, titles, and pages of the individual articles through any of the subject bibliographies. For theses, 94 per cent of the Doctors', 43 per cent of . the Masters', and 25 per cent of the Bachelors' were identified through printed sources, most of them special subject lists. The extent to which libraries held the various tools for verification was obtained by circularizing a checking list of 30 titles, including 43 items, to 6o selected and rep- resentative libraries that between them had made 70 pel' cent of the requests. Properly checked lists were returned by 55 of the 26 A full list of these tools is to be found in Kidder, op. cit., pp. I09 · L8. 27 Ibid., p . s6. 340 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES libraries, for a 92 per cent return. 28 Of the 25 university libraries, seven had all the tools on the list, while I8 had 35 or more, although the general average was brought down by the fact that a few of the smaller ones held only between I I and 25 of the items. The general average was 35, or 88 per cent of the titles in the list. The one state library held 65 per cent. The average for the public libraries, which included a number of large ones, was 55 per cent, while the average for the colleges was 48 per cent. The federal libraries, including a few large ones, held 38 per cent, while the special libraries held but I5 per cent. 29 The holdings of the biblio- graphical tools were found to show a positive correlation with size of library ranging from +.86 to +·94, depending on the type of cor- relation used. 30 At the same time, the hold- ings of certain general tools by the special libraries was held to indicate the probable holdings by those libraries of the special tools of most' use in identifying materials in the subject covered by those libraries. Testing of Serious Errors Kidder had found, in another test, that 82 per cent of the requests which were verifiable directly at the catalog had taken on an aver- age two minutes and 54 seconds to locate. Another 9 per cent, . not in the catalog, had been found to . be correct citations, and these took an average of three minutes and 23 seconds to locate. However, the 5 per cent which · were inc~rrect took an average of I2 minutes · and · 49 seconds for verification, while the 4 per cent that were uniden.tified had taken ·. an average of IO minutes and 32 seconds before · the search was ended. 31 Since Hodgson had classified 8 per cent ·of · all requests as having serious errors, it seemed reasonable to use that ·data as a check on the citati~ns which were most likely· to repr~sent added costs to the lending library, at le.ast in searching the catalogs. Statistically, the 46 errors classified as "serious" constitute too small a total for con- 218 For a list of the· tools see Kidder, op. cit., pp. I 20-23; for the percentage held by each library see Kidder, op. cit., pp. I04·8. 29 Ibid., p. 74· so Hodgson, op. cit., p. I 1. al Kidder, op. cit., p. go. OCTOBER, 1952 elusive statements, but the results are quite suggestive. Their distribution followed the general pattern in that the larger libraries, and the university libraries, had fewer errors per request, while the smaller libraries and the special libraries had the largest percent- ages. The college libraries and the public libraries, which were typical of the libraries in the middle-sized groups, showed an aver- age number of such errors. Only in the case of foreign language literature was this dis- tribution disturbed, for there public libraries, making less than 2 per cent of the requests for such literature, did not make any requests which contained serious errors. About I7 per cent of the serious errors were misspellings which could have been due to carelessness o·r a failure to verify entries. Yet, when the libraries from which such mis- spellings came were compared with the li- braries of a similar nature which had reported on bibliographic holdings, it seemed probable that those particular libraries had all the necessary bibiographic tools for the verifica- tion of those particular requests. 32 Leaving puf the misspellings, on the possible argument that these errors were due solely to careless- ness, even though they amounted to 3 per cent of all errors, it was found that 53 per cent of the remaining 38 errors were verifiable in sources which probably ~ere in the libraries making the requests. Interestingly enough, the largest percentages of the verifiable errors were in the largest and smallest libraries, while the highest percer:ttages of the unverifi~ able errors were found in the middle group, representing the college and public liqraries.~ 3 The general co.nclusion reached by . both the Kidder and Hodgson studies is that en- tirely too inany careless errors are being made in the citations in interlibrary loan requests, although erro·rs in only about 8 per cent of the ·requests are causing serious difficulties. There is no real relationship between such errors and the size of the requesting libraries, or their type. In general, a very large pro- ·portion of the errors that are made could be avoided if the entries were properly verified in a few bibliographic tools own.ed by the/ majority of libraries concerned. 32 Hodgson, op. cit., p. 38.. 33 Ibid., .P. JJ. 341 By CARL H. MELINAT Interlibrary Loan Practice and the Interlibrary Loan Code Mr. M elinat is associate professor, school of library science, Syracuse University. T HE PRACTICE of lending books and other materials among American libraries has gone on for a good many years without much attention to the development of a uniform system. It was not until I9I7 that the American Library Association felt it neces- sary to issue a "Code of Practice for Inter- library Loans" for the guidance of cooperat- ing libraries. This code was revised in I940 by an ACRL Interlibrary Loan Code Com- mittee1 under the chairmanship of Mr. Harold G. Russell and officially approved by the American Library Association Council. The "Interlibrary Loan Code of I940" has been the oqly concrete guide to policies in this field which librarians have had. How well has the I940 Code worked as a guide to the operation of this cooperative li- brary service? Many librarians during the past few years have observed that the code was being constantly violated either through ignorance of its terms or by intent because of disagreement with its terms. This problem has assumed crisis proportion to many because of the increasing volume of interlibrary loans in recent years. As part of a study on "The Administration of Interlibrary Loans in American Libraries," 2 the writer was interested in discovering just what the interlibrary loan practice of libraries consisted of and how closely it was related to the code. A questionnaire, based largely on the code, was sent to a group of libraries to determine at which points practice varied from library to library and at which points it was uniform. The selection of the libraries to be sur- veyed was based on the assumption that the libraries most concerned with interlibrary loans and those which controlled the practices involved were the large research libraries. To this group were added representative ex- 1 "Interlibrary Loan Code---1940," College and Re- search f:-ibraries, 2:3 z8-1p,, 376, September 1941. 2 Mehnat, Carl H. 'The Administration of Inter- library Loans in American Libraries." Master's thesis, Syracuse University, 1949. 140 p. (Microcard edition a.vailable from author at $1.00) amples of other types of libraries to broaden the scope of the survey. The selection in- cluded: 45 library members of the Associa- tion of Research Libraries (two Canadian libraries and one research library, which did not lend books, were omitted); 23 university and college libraries which were actively en- gaged in research (selection based on a total of more than 35 Doctorates awarded by the institutions over a seven year period) ;3 2I college libraries selected as representative by Dr. Felix E. Hirsch for his study of inter- library problems of college libraries ;4 and 24 public libraries with holdings of over 50o,ooo volumes. Of the I I3 questionnaires sent out, replies were received from IOO libraries and fell into the following groups: 50 university and special libraries, 30 college libraries, and 20 public libraries. From the responses to this questionnaire it is possible to determine the degree of acceptance of the policies as stated in the I940 Code and to make some recom- mendations for revision. Many of the recommendations suggested in this survey have already been incorporated into the code of I952 now being prepared by an ACRL Committee on Interlibrary Loans under the chairmanship of Mr. William A. Kozumplik. The primary purpose of this report is to highlight some of the limitations of the I940 Code and to emphasize the main lines of revision which should be considered in a code of I952. The first question put to librarians in this questionnaire was: "In borrowing books from other libraries, what code or set of regula- tions do you follow?" The majority ( 62%) of the libraries 5 surveyed follow the ALA Interlibrary Loan C9de plus their own regu- lations. Only 20% follow the Interlibrary Loan Code without variation, and 16% use only their own set of regulations. The uni- versity and college groups follow the same 8 American Council on Education. American Univer- sities and Colleges. ed. by A. J. Brumbaugh. sth ed. Washington, D.C., 1948, yp. 59-60. 4 Hirsch, Felix E. "Interlibrary Loans from the College Viewpoint," College and Research Libraries, 10:434-9, 444, October 1949. 11 Unless otherwise noted, the percentages given are for the total sample of 100 libraries. 342 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES pattern as the total sample, but the public libraries tend to use their own set of regula- tions more frequently (45%) and the ALA Code less frequently ( 10%). This level of acceptance of the code is not high enough and may account for many of the dissatisfactions with the interlibrary loan sys- tem. It would seem _ that the task of getting near 100% acceptance of a revised code is as important as the revision itself. The primary purpose of the interlibrary loan service is probably still in 1952 as it was in 1940, "to aid research calculated to ad- vance the boundaries of knowledge by the loan of unusual books." The difficulty with this first section of the code is that it does not go on to mention some secondary purposes which are becoming increasingly important today. Our survey indicates that over one- third of the libraries borrow (40%) and lend (38%) for the use of undergraduate students. One-quarter (26%) borrow for any serious reader or student, while one-half (so%) are willing to lend to this group. There seems to be no reason why a library should not bQrrow for any serious reader or student as long as each request is carefully screened and found to be necessary. Why should not an important secondary purpose of interlibrary loan service be to provide the reading as well as the research needs of patrons? If the library does not own and cannot buy the book or its equivalent for a serious reader, an interlibrary loan is cer- tainly in order. To say that transactions for other than research purposes "should be con- sidered as part of an extension service rather than as interlibrary loans" is misleading. It would be better to replace the last para- graph of this section with the statement that a secondary purpose of the interlibrary loan service is to provide the book needs of any serious reader or student when these needs cannot be met in any other way. The statement in the code regarding re- stricted materials reads as follows: "Li- braries are usually unwilling to lend; ma- terial in constant use; books of reference; books which are not to be taken from the library except by special permission; material which by reason of its size or character re- quires expensive packing; material which by reason of age, delicate texture, or fragile con- dition, is likely to suffer from being sent by mail or express." OCTOBERJ 1952 This list of material which libraries are usually unwilling to lend corresponds quite well to present lending policies as discovered in our survey of procedures. However, it should be noted that books of reference are often lent by 7 percent of the libraries, rare books by 12 percent, material of unusual size by I I percent, and material in fragile condi- tion by 7 percent. Libraries do often lend to other libraries "books which are not to be taken from the library except by special per- mission." Our survey of procedures also indicates that one of the major problems of 12 per cent of the borrowing libraries is the reluctance of libraries to lend certain types of materials. These materials are often of the type which do not circulate except by special perm1sswn. We shall probably always have disagreement on what constitutes restricted material, but the statement in the code should be as liberal as possible in order to en- courage lending with a minimum of restric- ·tions. The need for verification of the biblio- graphic details of requested items is stated in the code as follows: "All citations ought to be verified; when this proves to be impracticable, the statement 'Not Verified' ought to be made and a reference given to the source of the information." This statement is far too weak to cope with a very real problem. Our survey indicates that almost half (47%) of the lending libraries are not sati'sfied with the references sent to them. Slightly less than half ( 45%) report that requests do not usually indicate "Not Verified" even when that is the case. Almost one-third (3 I%) indicate that there is general uncertainty as to whether citations have been verified or not. · Over half (55%) of the libraries report un- verified citatio as being a major problem in connection with the lending of material to others. It is obviously unjust to burden the lending library with incomplete and unveri- fied citations. It is suggested that this pro- vision be modified to read: "All citations ought to be verified; when this proves to be impracticable, the statement 'Not Verified' must be made and a reference given to the source of the information; disregard of this provision is considered a sufficient reason for declining to lend." Sufficient examples have probably now been given on the relationship between interlibrary loan practice and the Interlibrary Loan Code. 343 In pointing out some of the limitations of the 1940 Code, many sections which agree with practice and probably need no revision have not been considered. Any complete compari- son based on the present survey makes ·it ap- parent that the 1940 Code is still basically sound. Some of its provisions simply need to be revised to meet present day conditions and practice. The college libraries are probably more than any other group dissatisfied with the pro- visions of the code as they now stand; the code was written too much from the uni- versity library point of view. The public libraries, borrowing much less for research purposes, tend to ignore the code when it does not suit their purpose. The college li- braries, however, borrowing heavily from uni- versity and research libraries, cannot do this and still meet the needs of their patrons. They tend to believe that the code lacks the liberality necessary for effective interlibrary cooperation in the use of materials. Certainly any revision of the code should consider more carefully the problems of the college and public libraries. The Interlibrary Loan Code needs con- stant revision to make it adaptable to changing conditions. The original code of 1917 stood 23 years before being revised in 1940 and that revision is now out-of-date. The fact that the code is adhered to on a voluntary basis makes it important that it be revised at frequent intervals. As long as its provisions meet general agreement among participating libraries, it will act to make practice more uniform. As soon, however, as there is marked variation between its provisions and actu·al practice, it will fall into disrespect and disuse. Provision should be made for constant re- vision of the code through the appointment of a permanent ACRL Committee on Inter- library Loans. This committee would be charged with continuous appraisal of inter- library loan practice and the drafting of amendments to the code as needed. The final success of these efforts to:ward uniformity of interlibrary loan practice de- pends upon the cooperation and enthusiasm of all librarians concerned. The Association of College and Reference Libraries must take on the job of making the code known and making it liked by all cooperating libraries. Why not get the library supply houses to in- clude a copy of the code with each order of Standard Interlibrary Loan Forms? Only by getting an oversupply of copies in circulation and generating enthusiasm for their use will tlte code contribute to the free flow of ma- terials from one library to another. It pro- vides a real basis for cooperation. By MARY LOU LUCY Interlibrary Loans in a University Library Miss Lucy is reference assistantJ Columbia University Libraries. A SURVEY of current practice in inter-library loans at Columpia University Libraries, based on the records of all trans- actions begun between July 1, 1951 and April 30, 1952, was made during the first six months of 1952. The study includes the types of material borrowed and loaned, the libraries involved, the procedures used, and the costs to Columbia. In 19401 it was estimated that the cost of · lending a volume, excluding transportation, was about $2, but since that time, costs have 1 Columbia University Libraries. Annual Report, 1939·40. risen, the standard request form has been de- veloped, express rates have gone up, and photographic processes have been greatly im- proved. A new appraisal of the situation was desirable, so the study was made to determine how much interlibrary loans now cost Columbia and whether or not costs can be reduced without reducing service. Since masters' essays and dissertations make up a large portion of the total transactions, they deserved special attention. Inadequate prepa- ration of requests for loans was known to contribute to costs, but the seriousness of this problem had not been determined. These were the major areas studied, although all factors affecting costs were considered. Fortunately, complete records had been kept during the year, so figures on both in- 344 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES TABLE I MATERIAL LoANED BY CoLuMBIA1 Total Books Serials Theses Other Kinds of % no. of Before I9oo- 1941 Before Ph.D. Ph.D. Libraries of I940 val. vols. 1900 I940 & Later 1940 & Later M.A. -I950 i 9so+ No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. ------------ ------ --------- --- University 55· I I04I I05 339 89 I I2 40 I7I 63 54 68 College 20.0 378 28 I35 34 33 26 64 35 20 3 Government II.9 226 7 79 20 39 24 3I 5 20 I Business 6. I 114 23 I3 24 30 I2 9 3 Public 2. I 4I I .S' 5 I I I8 I Foreign 2. I 41 2 25 5 2 2 I 2 2 Other 2.6 so 2 8 4 IJ 5 7 9 2 ------------ ------ --------- --- Total Vols. 189I 144 624 170 224 I28 3C4 124 IOI 72 --------- ------ --------- --- Percentage 7·6 33·0 9·0 t Figures for ten month period. coming and outgoing requests, transportation charges, and use of the Union Catalog are ·based on actual count. Supply costs have been determined by counting specific kinds neces- sary in each procedure. To obtain the cost of staff time devoted to interlibrary loans, a time study was made for two weeks in which 2 IO transactions were begun. Time was kept on all parts of the total procedure, rather than on one complete transaction. Staff time iq departmental libraries is based on the timing of 86 transactions involving eight de- partmental libraries as well as the c~ntral loan desk. Time reported by departmental li- braries may not be as reliable as desirable, be- cause of the limited number of transactions spread over several departments. In the ten-month period, department~! libraries con- tributed 55·4% of the loans made, while 44.6% were loaned from the central collec- tion. Lending Columbia's policy is to lend to any library within the United States, Canada, or Mexico and to other libraries in special circumstances. Lending outside these countries actually pre- sents no problem because requests are seldom received. The new interlibrary loan code is followed in all respects, but all volumes borrowed or loaned are required to be used within the library building. There are no blanket restrictions on lending, although in some instances, circulation of any kind is I}ro- hibited by the terms of the establishment of ·a OCTOBER, 1952 II.8 6.8 I6. I 6.6 5·3 3·8 particular collection. Otherwise, the decision on lending rests with the department which owns the volume, rather than with the inter- library loan librarian. During the period studied, requests for 297I titles were received, of which I726 (58. I%) were loaned to 4 I 9 libraries. In addition to this number, 97 (3.3%) were re- ferred to the Medical Library or Teachers College which have separate interlibrary loan services, after it had been ascertained that the volumes were available for loan. There were 469 ( I5.8 % ) rquests which were not filled although the material was in the library. These were not loaned for the usual variety of reasons, such as in use, at the bindery, on reserve, etc., but the largest number were in the Avery Library of Architecture which in- cludes art and archeology. Since this is a rich collection, we receive a large number of requests for material in it; however, nothing may leave the building under any circum- stances. In the second largest category of loans not granted, photographic copies were offered in place of 7I volumes of periodicals, when the articles wanted consisted of IO pages or less. There remain 679 titles requested (22.8%) which were not owned by the library, includ- ing 377 book titles and 28 serial titles of which no volumes were owned. It can be shown that regular use of the Union Catalog at the Library of Congress would considerably reduce requests for material not owned by the library, and increase the efficiency of the 345 TABLE 2 MATE RIAL BoRROWED B Y CoL U MBIA1 Books Serials Theses Other Columbia Befor e Before Readers I940 1940 & Later I940 No. No. No . Faculty 35 2I I6 Instructors & Lecturers 41 9 I7 Ph.D. Cand. 84 I8 3 1 M.A. Cand . 24 I8 I 2 Other 6 4 I2 -- I Total Volumes 190 70 88 1 Figures for ten m ont hs. borrowing library. In a recent LC Informa- tion Bulletin 2 it was reported that of 817 titles searched, 72.8 % were located immedi- ately, with 234 located outside of LC. The Author Catalog would have located 391 of these at once. Columbia's experience further demonstrates the value of using this means of location. Even after the New York Public Library and other likely libraries in the city had been searched, leaving relatively unusual titles to be sent to the Union Catalog, 6r.8 % of the titles sent by Columbia, were located immedi- ately, of which 47.6 % were found outside of LC. In New York, locations can usually be received from the Union Catalog within 48 hours. Another I r.6 % of the titles sent were located through circularization, making a total of 73·4% located, with 59.2 % located outside of LC. Columbia always attempts to locate copies in other libraries first, except those for the use of faculty members which are .. often borrowed directly from LC. It is encouraging to find in their annual reports that there is an increasing use of the Union Catalog since it relieves libraries of some of the searching for titles not definitely known to be in their collections. Borrowing Columbia attempts to borrow for graduate students , faculty, visiting scholars , and mem- bers of the various branches of the Uni- versity, but all borrowing is done for indi- vidual use, only. During the period studied, volumes were borrowed for 45 faculty mem- 2 L ibrary of Cong ress . I nformat ion B 1,lletin I I :I 2, May I 9 , r ;15 2 . Total 1940 M.A. Ph.D. Volum es & Later No. No. No . No. 2 8 25 I2 I I9 I 2 9 8 87 4 I9 84 64 304 I 6 18 6 85 8 6 IS I4 65 16 41 151 104 66o hers, 23 lecturers and instructors, I20 Ph.D. candidates, 53 masters' candidates, and 32 other members of the University. Table 2 shows a detailed breakdown of the 66o volumes borrowed, representing 5 I 7 titles. Easy access to large libraries may account for this seemingly low number of borrowers in a university of Columbia's size. Of 794 transactions begun, 76.2% were satisfactorily completed, which includes the 7.8% of the titles which were found at Co- lumbia or in the city, 3.2 % for which only locations were wanted, and the 65.I% ac- tually borrowed. Locations were known for 535 titles , since 224 were theses or disserta- tions, 62 were iA the city, and 229 were located through the Union L ist of Serials, bibliographies, or borrow ed from the Library of Congress. The remaining 259 titles were sent to the Union Catalog which located all except 76. A large number of the I I3 titles not available for loan were classed as rare books. {Many of these would have been obvi- ous but as lending policies vary, with some libraries being exceptionally generous, it seemed only fair to our readers to make the requests. ) Although an attempt is made to spread borrowing among as many libraries as possi- ble , there has been a necessary concentration of Columbia borrowing on both LC and Har- vard, because only these libraries owned the material. We were able to lend a compara- ble number of volumes to most of the other libraries from which we borrowed. Ten or more volumes were borrowed from each of eight other university libraries: California- Berkeley, Chicago, Cornell, Michigan, Penn- 346. COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES TABLE 3 ERRORS AND INCOMPLETE CITATIONS IN INCOMING REQUESTS1 Number Number Number Number Per cent No Other Total Errors Material of Correct Correct Unver. Unver. Date Errors Errors per Requests Request Books 243 16 6.7 204 83·9 72 230 so6 2.09 Serials 49 8 16.3 41 83.6 I 135 177 3.61 M.A. 53 4 7·5 49 92·4 7 } Ph.D. 59 3 5. I s6 94·9 24 9 145 I .JO Total 404 31 7·7 350 86.8 104 374 828 2.04 1 Figures based on study of all requests received in one month. sylvania, Princeton, Stanford-Hoover, and Yale. The remainder were scattered among 88 libraries. Preparation of Requests Incomplete incoming requests is one of the most troublesome aspects of interlibrary loan. A more complete study of this problem can be found elsewhere in this issue, but a report of findings in another situation may be of interest. It may be agreed that every library desires to lend whatever it can to other li- braries, but as is shown in Table 3, the borrowing library too often sends inadequate information for the desired volume to be found without difficulty in the lending library or even to be found at all, although the volume is there. In a four week period, 404 requests were examined for completeness ac- cording to the ALA code 3 and only 31 (7.7%) were found to be complete in all respects. In this study no distinction was made between errors and omissions, and the Union List was counted as verification of serial titles. A total of 828 errors were made, or 2.04 per request. Table 3 shows the distribution of errors. It is possible that not all of the in - formation required by the code is essential to find . the :volume; for example, omission of publisher. was probably of little consequence. On the other hand, over one-fourth omitted the date of - publication, which is absolutely essential as few · libraries have the staff time for verification of titles in bibliographies and indexes which are chiefly by date of publica- tion. The average cost of verification is re- ported with other costs in this paper. Lack of verification accounted for 42.3% of the total errors made. It is possible that 3 American Library Association. "Interlibrary Loan Code." College and Research Libraries 2:318-19, 376, Sept. 1941. See also n~w code in this issue. OCTOBER~ 1952 libraries do verify, but omit the source of verification on requests, but this is of little aid to the lending library. Melinat4 found that 87% of the libraries reporting in his study attempt to verify and the majority do verify ( 90-95%). If verification is sometimes im- possible, than even a small library can pro- vide the source of the reference. In the six requests in which the sources were given, without verification, two were discovered to be incorrect, with the author entirely omitted in one and misspelled in the other. Had these sources been omitted, these titles would not have been properly searched. At Columbia it has been found necessary to require the reader to provide a printed source of reference when he fills out the initial request form. This need not be a national bibliography or library catalog, but rather the place where he saw the reference to the title he wants. The interlibrary loan librarian must then verify the information before sending it out, or in rare instances where verification is impossible, the source must be given. Incomplete information given for disserta- tions and essays make them especially difficult to find. Often no indication is given of whether it is an essay or dissertation; dates and first names are omitted, and only ap- proximate titles are noted. Some of this can be justified because of inadequate lists of masters' essays, the increasing number of notes on titles in progress, and the delayed publication of lists of dissertations completed. It is especially important to give the source of the reference in these cases where verifica- tion is impossible. In the latest volume of Doctoral Dissertations .Accepted by American "Melinat, Carl H. Interlibrary Loan Practice and the Interlibrary Code. M.A. thesis, Syracuse, 1949. p. 57· 347 Universities a distinction has been made be- tween Columbia and Teachers CoUege which may help to reduce the number of requests which now have to be identified and sent on. Multiple Request Fo~m On the brighter side, the multiple, 5 X 8 forms, approved by the ALA have been found to be more than satisfactory at Columbia. It is encouraging to know that an increasing number of libraries are using them, and it is to be hoped that more of the large libraries will soon adopt them. At the end of April 1952, only 22.3% of all the libraries which had made requests since January 1952 were using this form, with 24.1% of the college and university libraries using them. The real suc- cess of the form lies in standardization of procedure. A detailed study of the clerical time necessary using the old routine compared with that using the new form was made dur- ing the same two weeks of the cost study. An average of five minutes and two seconds were saved on each outgoing request, and nine minutes and 24 seconds were saved on each incoming request when the form was used. The substitution of window en- velopes was included. If the clerical time if computed at 2¢ a minute, the cost of routines is reduced more than 10¢ on borrowing and 18¢ on lending, while the form costs 2.8¢, and at the same time other supplies are saved. Specifically, time was saved as follows: no acknowledgment of receipt, less time to pre- pare return notice, less time on renewals, no typing of envelopes, and less typing of records. Theoretically, professional time is saved on verification, but since 24% of the titles not verified in the 404 requests were on the new form, and this corresponds roughly to that using the form at the time, it appears that little influence has been exerted. However, professional time is saved in checking the cata- log when one title is given per page because titles can be alphabetized and checked in order. Loans go out faster when one title no longer has to be held until all others are ready. Of course, this could be true of any form, but it is now compulsory. There has been a noticeable drop in the amount of correspondence handled with the use of the form and the elimination of ac- knowledgment of receipt. From January through April 1952, there was a decrease over the preceding six months of 1200 pieces which represented a drop of only 108 titles involved. This means a substantial saving in a library where correspondence runs into thousands per month. Photoclerk The possibilities of using the photoclerk in interlibrary loan have not been fully explored at Columbia, although some experimentation has been done in an attempt to eliminate extra typing. At present every incoming request has to be copied on a multiple call slip for either the central loan desk or the depart- mental libraries. A brief record by author of volumes out on loan is also kept, which we find useful, especially when there are waiting lists for some titles. Since the new form can be photoclerked very well, with space left for writing in, and the print can be sent by pneumatic tube, this may be a means · of shortening procedure. More work needs to be done on this before anything definite can be reported. Costs of Interlibrary Loans Costs of personnel needed for bot.h borrow- ing and lending are based on a ti}lle study of procedures for two weeks in which 164 in- coming requests and 46 requests from Co- lumbia readers were received. By averaging the time spent by the four people involved in the borrowing process (reference assistant, clerk-typist, page, and shipping clerk), and multiplying by the individual rate per minute, the cost of personnel per volume borrowed was found to be $1.47. The rate was de- termined by taking the net time worked by a full-time employee, 168o hours, and dividing by the annual salary. Transportation costs were added for all loans during the 10 months and found to average 95.5¢ 5 per volume, and to this was added 17.5¢ for supplies including . ·postage, and 10¢ for shipping supplies. (Co- lumbia does not use shipping bags.) These costs total $2.70 per volume borrowed, with 54·5 % in personnel costs, 35·4% in trans- portation and the remaining 10. I% m supplies. Fees collected from Columbia borrowers at the rate of $.50 per printed volume and $1.00 for a ms. thesis, totaled $409 in ten months, which makes the net loss on transportation 33·S¢ a volume and the total net cost to 5 The average cost by express was $2'.19 and by mail, $. 26 . 348 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES . . · / Columbia $2.08 a volume. The apparently low cost of transportation can be explained by our policy of sending material by first class mail whenever it is cheap~r than paying the minimum express rate of $1.6,1 each way. Up to three and one-half pounds can be sent for less by first class mail than by express any- wh~re in the country. We were also able to .return two or more volumes together on many occasions. The average cost of lending was found to be $1.27 per volume, divided as follows: $1.07 in personnel costs, 9.6¢ in supplies including postage, and 10¢ in shipping supplies. These costs do not include the campus messenger or the telephone, both of which . are rather large items in a library with departments in many different buildings. The cost of proc- essing a request which did ~ot result in a loan averaged $.58, while the average cost of requests for material not 'borrowed was $.99. The incoming requests which required verification cost i3.5¢ to verify. It is interesting to compare the cost of transportation of a dissertation by express at $3.22 both ways, with the average cost of a microfilm copy. University Microfilm has estimated the average cost of a copy on micro- film at $2. 78, based on a count of more than 500 titles. There are some limitations in us- ing this alternative, aside from possible in- convenience to the reader, because there are now just 24 participating institutions, and some of these are not yet represented in Dis- sertation Abstracts. During the 10 months, Columbia still loaned 101 dissertations com- pleted in 1950 or later, although they were available on microfilm. The cost of process- ing the film copy after it has been purchased by the library is always an argument for n ot buying them, but it would be cheaper to buy them and throw them away than to borrow and return by express. In many instances it would be cheaper to buy the film than to borrow by first class mail. Renewals In an effort to determine whether or not the length of the loan period had any effect on renewals, the loan periods were tabulated for all titles borrowed by Columbia. Renew- OCTOBER_, 1952 als were requested on 26.7% of the titl~s. The ratios of loan periods to renewals were as follows: I month, 14.4% of loans and 13% of renewals; 3 weeks, 16.4% of loans and 16.8% of renewals; 2 weeks, 67.9% of loans and 69.7% of renewals. ·These correspond so closely that apparently the length of the loan makes no difference. Columbia's usual loan period is one month, and only 5.8% were renewed. The average cost of renewing a title loaned was found to be 18¢, and that of renewing a title borrowed was 12¢. Summary and Recommendations Costs of interlibrary loans at Columbia can be reduced without reducing the service. Ap- proximately $400 was spent in 10 months on..- requests for material not owned by the li- brary. Other libraries can make use of the Union Catalog first, and resort to. guessing at locations only after this has been done, since it has been shown that a large per- centage of titles can be rapidly located by this means. Borrowing libraries can also give more complete information on requests. If verification is not possible, the source of the information can be included. More care can be taken in requesting essays and dissertations which are so troublesome to the lending li- brary. General use of .the multiple 5 X 8 form would reduce costs both through elimination of many supplies, and reduction in the cleri- cal time rieeded to process requests. This would mean use of the form by the very large libraries, especially since many of them have not yet adopted it. / Libraries which borrow from each other with some regularity could send annual bitlis for postage to eliminate the constant counting and handling of small packets of stamps now necessary. Other means of reducing costs might be found through a more intensive study of pro- cedures at Columbia with a view toward reducing clerical time on procedures, and sub- stituting some clerical time for professional time. But for the most part, reduction of our· costs depends on greater cooperation with other libraries. It is hoped that the new code will help in . this direction. 349 .