Primary Research Group has published Higher Education Interlibrary Loan Management Benchmarks, 2013 Edition, ISBN 978-1-57440-216-2.

This report looks closely at how academic libraries manage their interlibrary loan operations. It gives critical data on response and fulfillment times, for borrowing and lending, for books, journal articles, eBooks, videos and other forms of intellectual property. It presents benchmarking data on staffing, management oversite, productivity, technology use and other issues and factors in higher education interlibrary loan management. This 166-page study also looks closely at shipping costs, staffing levels, response times, workflow studies, end user preferences in ILL delivery, automation, impact of digital repositories, use of student labor, special provisions for distance learning ILL, and other critical issues. The study also looks at which library departments or agencies control the ILL function. Data is broken out by size and type of academic library and also for academic libraries in the United States and elsewhere.

Just a few of the many findings from this report are:   

• Over the past three years, traditional interlibrary loan services transactions in college libraries in the sample have increased by a mean of 17.94 percent
• Colleges in the sample with more than 7,500 students have a mean of 4.82 full-time equivalent employees on the interlibrary loan staff
• College libraries in the United States spend a mean of $29,242 each year on interlibrary loan and document delivery operations
• In colleges with distance learning programs, a mean of 11.3 percent of the interlibrary loan request volume is accounted for by requests from distance learning students or instructors
• 51.47 percent of college libraries in the sample allow interlibrary loan of college textbooks
• Community colleges in the sample spent a mean of $1,913 in the past year on shipping and courier fees related to interlibrary loan, whereas 4-year colleges spent a mean of $9,425
• Only 5.88 percent of survey participants say their library charges a fee for use of document delivery

The study is available in print and PDF format for $95.00. Site licenses cost $220.00. To view a table of contents, list of questions and participants, and sample data, or to order a copy of the report, please visit our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.