Inter-library loans

[fivemack]

An ILL through Cambridge library used to cost three pounds, and this was a magical level: instead of paying £2.76 to Amazon for a book from a 1p-seller who charged the standard postage, I could pay £3 and the library would take the book away afterwards.

I suppose that this should have struck me as strange, since an ILL implies moving the book from one library to another and back and second-class postage for a book is £2.36 each way; but maybe you could cut a factor two off that by posting books in batches, it doesn't matter to me if an ILL takes two weeks.

I went in to collect an ILL today and was told that the fee had gone up to five pounds. I pointed out that this stopped them being competitive with Amazon, and the librarian said 'but it costs us thirteen pounds to process an ILL'. Librarian salaries are about £20k per year, so with overheads this is saying that it takes most of an hour of librarian time plus postage for a second-class small packet to do a single ILL.

This isn't a problem for me; I can switch to buying the books from Amazon, and I can donate them to the library afterwards if I want the library to take them away. But I'd have used the service less if I'd known it was so expensive to provide.

Comments

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

How much does it cost the library to accept the donation? ;)

It's been a long time since I went to a library. They were a tremendous resource as a kid, but the internet has cast a long strange shadow over them.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Until Z was born, my wills always left all I died possessed to the library, and they remain my default beneficiary if my specific named beneficiaries predecease me. There's a reason for this, and my immense use of ILL is part of that reason.

If I were rich I would endow libraries.

[carbonel]

None of the libraries in the U.S. that I've used for ILL ever charged for the service, so it came as a nasty shock to discover how much it costs the library. (Don't remember the amount, but it was enough to be startling.)

I've only used ILL for books that were comprehensively out of print and that I couldn't get used for an affordable price, so I don't feel guilty about it, but it did make me think twice about future use.

[uitlander]

Hmm. In all the Universities I have worked before it has been made pretty clear to us the International Library Loans were a subsidised privilege to be used for academic purposes only. In Oxford and Newcastle they were rationed, and I was not able to make more that 5 ILL requests per term (this was very annoying as much of the material required for my D.Phil. research was only available in Belgium).

I have to admit to being shocked to learn you've been using it in this way, although I accept that the UL do not make this at all clear in it's documentation on the subject.

[monkeyhands.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of inter-library loans before. Thanks for this post.

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

I think all the universities where I have worked haven't charged you personally for ILLs but instead cap the number that you can make each year. I know some of them have made it clear they cost over £10 each to discourage people from using them too casually. I wonder if ILLs of journal papers are more or less expensive than books? Getting somebody to photocopy the paper may be more expensive than the postage.

[downybearded1.livejournal.com]

I thought library books travelled via van, not parcel?

Still, it is interesting comparing this with Amazon.

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

Hrm, that's interesting. I've been using the library book request quite a lot lately as it's cheaper/greener than buying (e.g. for book club). Am I right in thinking they've only started charging for books imported from outside the county.

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

From my library employment experience I would say the greatest ILL cost is staff time with all the paper shifting/emailing/invoicing, so £13 does not sound surprising.