Guidelines for Best Practice in Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery

Abstract

This leaflet stems from discussions held among members of the Document Delivery and Resource Sharing Section of IFLA. It is based on best practices formulated from the following studies: 1.) Performance of Interlending in Nordic Academic Libraries: Report for NORDINFO Board Pentti Vattulainen, 2003. 2.) Measuring the Performance of Interlibrary Loan Operations in North American Research & College Libraries. Mary E. Jackson. Washington: Association of Research Libraries, 1998. 3.) Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Benchmarking Study National Resource Sharing Working Group; Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2001. These are brief guidelines for use within your own interlibrary loan department and are standards to strive for. We are aware that not all libraries will be able to implement all the recommendations, but we would nevertheless encourage libraries to use these guidelines as a basis for their current service and to influence future development.