Interlibrary Loan & Document Supply


4,376 Items borrowed for BC faculty and students
776 Articles obtained for BC faculty and students from commercial suppliers
2,199 Items lent to other libraries

Research Services staff filled 88% of all the requests they received from Brooklyn College students and faculty. Readers submitted almost double the number of requests received by staff in 1996/97: as electronic databases and indexes make it easier for readers to identify items of interest, requests for materials from other collections grow.

In order to maximize the Library's budget (both our own funds and the allocation for document supply we receive from the University) we use commercial document suppliers only for faculty requests; requests from students are sent to libraries that lend or photocopy either inexpensively or free of charge. In this way we are able to offer our clientele excellent yet cost-effective service. The state-funded METRO Hospital Library Services Program paid for 72 items (with a value of $792) for Brooklyn College readers.

Not every library lends and photocopies free of charge. Research Services spent $4,886.12 to obtain 239 journal articles 156 book loans for Brooklyn College readers, plus some $15,000 provided by CUNY central to purchase articles from commercial suppliers. Research Services staff are diligent in checking the Library's own e-journal collections before requesting articles from commercial document suppliers or other libraries. This year about 150 articles were found in our full-text electronic sources, an indication that those who use Research Services are doing their homework before submitting loan requests.

Who is using Research Services? The CLIO statistics, our interlending and document supply management software statistics indicate the following:

  • The academic departments with the largest number of requests were Psychology, Health and Nutrition, Biology, and English.
  • Faculty requested the most items, followed by graduate and undergraduate students.
  • The average turnaround time for borrowing was 9.5 days. Turnaround time for lending is less than 1 day--an item is typically sent out the same day we receive the request, making Brooklyn College a very good citizen in the world of interlending.
  • The majority of the requests are for journal articles rather than books.

    In March 2004 Research Services ran up against a significant obstacle when the Library's postage budget was exhausted. For the first time in 2003-2004 the College made postage a part of each unit's budget, a sum theoretically equivalent to what the unit had spent on postage the previous year. Although we questioned the Library's allocation of between three and four thousand dollars, we were asked to work with that sum and see what happened. We immediately set up a mail log for both first and fourth class mail to track the number and type of items the Library sent out. When funds ran out with 3.5 months left to go in the academic year it was easy to see that interlibrary loans and student fine/overdue notices were the culprits. Vice-President Little came to our rescue with an additional $3,000 which will become a part of our annual base budget.