College and Research Libraries GENEVIEVE PORTERFIELD Staffing of Interlibrary Loan Service Questionnaires were sent to forty-five college and university libraries. Information asked for was as follows: place of interlibrary loan work in the library organization; statistics of interlibrary borrowing and lending; staff now being devoted to interlibrary loan work, including a statement abou.t related work done by others; a statement as to whether present staff is ample, barely adequate, or inadequate. Data collected are presented in three tables: staff adequate for inter- library loan; staff barely adequate for interlibrary loan; staff inadequate for interlibrary loan. The replies show surprisingly little consensus, and additional in- vestigation is clearly warranted. How MUCH STAFF TIME is required for interlibrary loan work? What is the best proportion of professional to nonprofes- sional staff? Is there a point in the growth of this service when it ceases to be economical to include this service in the reference department? The need to know how other librarians answer questions such as these prompted the writer to send questionnaires to th e persons in charge of inter library loan in forty-five college and university libraries. The following information was re- ques~ed: place of interlibrary loan work in the library organization; statistics of interlibrary borrowing and lending; staff now being devoted to ¢e work, includ- ing a statement about related work done by others; a statement as to whether present staff is ample, barely adequate, or inadequate. Substantiation of the judgment of inadequacy was asked for in terms of staff working under too much pressure, staff working overtime, inter- library loan work being in arrears, or other work being neglected. Miss Porterfield is Reference Librarian in the University of New Mexico. I 318 Replies were received from forty of the forty-five libraries; thirty-five are used in this report. The place of inter library loan in the organization of the thirty-five libraries is as follows: part of reference, seven- teen; part of circulation, eight; separate unit, three; dispersed among divisions, two; borrowing in reference, lending in circulation, one; information desk, one; librarian's office, one; science division, one; and state library service, one. In the three tables which follow, infor- mation has been tabulated according to whether the respondent considers the staff adequate, barely adequate (need of additions anticipated in the near future ), or inadequate. The libraries have arbi- trarily been listed in order of the num- ber of items borrowed. It is obvious that local situations vary greatly and that the questionnaire did not bring out sufficient information to be conclusive. A few observations, how- ever, can be made on the basis of this incomplete information. The fact that 89 per cent of the ques- tionnaires were returned and that most Staffing of Interlibrary Loan Service I 319 of the respondents indicated interest in learning the results indicates that this is an area of concern to many librarians, and the many unanswered questions sug- gest areas where further research is needed. TABLE 1 STAFF ADEQUATE FOR INTERLIBRARY LOAN STATISTICS STAFF HOURS PER WEEK Profes- Subpro- Borrow Loan sional fessional Clerical 1 184 3,229 30 60 2 261 230 20 3 308 1,715 39 39 10 4 386 911 7 3 5 428 1,131 20 6 518 618 4 8 7 581 445 3 3 20 8 809 512 32 10 9 917 1,147 30 10 16 10 932 7,965 39 39 11 1,102 576 30 30 12 1,182 2,282 28 40 13 1,419 2,445 35 39 14 . 2,519 3,459 39 39 Library 1 : Loans include 1,107 articles photocopied. Library 3: Loans include 389 local loans, telephone requests. Library 6 : Loans include 646 local loans. Student 4 10 3 16 25 39 WORK DONE BY OTHER STAFF None None Verification, paging Paging, photocopying Paging, photocopying Packaging None None Packaging Packages, part of verifying Paging, packages None Packaging Packaging, photocopying Library 6: Sends all requests to one large university library. Ordinarily makes no further effort if this li- brary cannot lend. Library 7: Reports unusual success with insisting upon all borrowers giving bibliographically correct and complete references. This drastically reduces the part of borrowing that consumes the most professional time. Library 10: Loans include 6,288 local loans and 1,346 local photocopies. Library 14 : About 30 per cent of volumes borrowed come by messenger ; about 5 per cent of loans by mes- senger. · TABLE 2 STAFF BARELY ADEQUATE FOR INTERLIBRARY LOAN STATISTICS STAFF HOURS PER WEEK Profes- Subpro- Borrow Loan sional fessional Clerical Student WORK DONE BY OTHER STAFF 1 104 361 4 10 Paging, packages, teaching borrowers to verify 2 549 1,022 13 25 Part of paging 3 750 1,652 20 80 Packatng 4 841 129 39 39 Part o verifying, packaging 5 1,128 1,963 39 39 39 20 None 6 1,131 1,833 4 36 Occasional help with packages and verifying 7 1,233 675 14 39 15 Verification, packages 8 1,237 1,328 Super- 39 46 Park of verification vision 9 1,308 7,794 39 10 20 None 10 1,459 1,557 26 20 None 11 1,446 1,902 30 61 10 None Library 6: Remarks suggest that this library may be doing what amounts to regional reference service, ra- ther than pure interlibrary lending. Library 6: Remarks that this library particularly fortunate in having an unusually capable full time clerical assistant who does most of the work with only supervision by the professional. Library 9: Lending figure includes unknown number of local loans. Library 11: Borrowing and lending are separate operations. Lending required only twenty-one clerical hours per week. The remainder is for borrowing, and it is borrowing that is in the barely adequate category. Re- marks indicate difficulty of getting borrowers to verify and give complete references. 320 I College & Research Libraries • July, 1965 TABLE 3 STAFF INADEQUATE FOR INTERLIBRARY LOAN STATISTICS STAFF HouRS PER W EEK Profes- Subpro- Borrow Loan sional fessional Clerical Student WORK DONE BY OTHER STAFF 1 . 586 1,074 9 3 7 Books not originally found in stacks searched by 2. 968 9,798 10 40 12 Circ. Dept. None 3 . 1,021 1,303 13 20 10 10 None 4. 1,070 811 39 Packages, photocopying, occasional help with 5 . 1,144 751 30 39 typing, verifying Paging, packages, part of 6 . 1,202 425 10 30 20 verifying Part of reference work by divisions; paging by divisions 7 . 1,262 2,138 39 50 None 8 . 1,289 474 I 15 25 4 None 9 . 1,640 1,009 26 39 39 15 None 10. 2,956 872 20 39 39 4 Packages Library 2: Loan figures includes 3,264 local loans. Library 5: Same staff does photocopy work. In same period: 67 microfilms, 1,000 Xerox copies ; and 50 mi- crofilm printer copies; received 11 microfilms, 196 Xerox copies and 217 photostats. Library 7: Frequent overtime work ; nevertheless reference work and book selection duties neglected. Library 8: Frequent overtime work, but other work sometimes neglected. Library 9: Some overtime work, but se1·vice sometimes suffers in spite of it. Library 10: Much of borrowing is from largest library in state university system, including 1,210 free photo- copies. Books from this library by messenger without wrapping, but using standard forms. There is evidence that in many li- braries the demand for interlibrary loan service has outgrown the facilities pro- vided for it. It appears that many ad- ministrators are still thinking of interli- brary loans as work that can be done in odd moments as a part of the work of the reference department or some other department. This no doubt is satisfactory when the volume of work is small. It is questionable whether this is an econom- ical way to handle it when the actual time required equals that of one or more full-time persons. There is no consensus as to the desir- able division of time between profes- sional and nonprofessional personnel. It is likely that the largest single factor con- tributing to the differences here is the variation in local situations as to how much of the bibliographical work bor- rowers can be induced to do for them- selves and how much a librarian must do for them. And this depends upon the philosophy and administrative policy, not only of the library, but of the uni- versity as a whole. Among the ar~~s for further research that suggest themselves are the follow- ing: A study that would get exact job de- scriptions of a large enough sample of persons engaged in interlibrary loan work to identify definitely the profes- sional and nonprofessional elements. A study of the extent to which profes- sional staff can be cut down by adding nonprofessional help. The above data do not show that this automatically hap- pens. Does this mean that training and supervision necessarily require a great deal of professional time? A time study comparing situations where interlibrary loan work is "worked in" with other work (if time could be measured under these circumstances ) and situations where it is done separately in quarters of its own. • •