Exploratory Analysis of ILL Demand at the University of Northampton

Sep 4, 2024 | Articles

At the Forum for Interlending (FIL) events held in 2022, several colleagues from different institutions commented that there has been a decrease in demand for inter-library loans (ILL). The University of Northampton has also seen changes in its ILL service. This initial analysis explores the question of whether demand for inter-library loans has decreased at the University of Northampton (UON) and if so, why this might be.

1. Background

The University of Northampton is one of the youngest universities in the UK, being awarded full university status in 2005. It provides education to around 12,000 – 15,000 students in the UK and abroad.

UON Library and Learning Services has had an ILL service running for many years. The service currently has one person 0.5FTE, assigned to deal with ILL requests, with support from other Information Assistants at busier times. The number of requests patrons can make is unlimited and there is no charge for the service. Charges are only made for damaged or lost books. For the period this analysis covers, requests were made by patrons via an online ILL form using their student ID and PIN, and received in the library management system, Sierra.

2. Scope

This ILL analysis looks specifically at the five years of data, covering the academic years 2017-2022, as no complete data is available before this time.

Only requests from UON patrons to borrow from other libraries has been included and not external requests for us to lend.

3. Data Extraction

Data on the number of ILL requests was manually extracted from the library management system, Sierra, for each of the five complete years from 1 August 2017 to 31 July 2022. As there was no way to run a report from Sierra on ILL data, information was copied and pasted into an Excel spreadsheet for further analysis.

4. Results

The total number of requests that were dealt with for each year from 2017-22 are shown in Figure 1. The steady decrease in requests is obvious, with an all-time low in 2020-21 for reasons that will be discussed later, before increasing slightly in the most recent year. Overall, it shows a significant decrease from 2017 to 2022 of 45%.

Figure 1: Total Requests 2017-22

The total number of requests was further broken down into those requests that were completed and those that were cancelled, month by month for each academic year.

Completed requests are those where we successfully supplied the requested item. The total number of requests that were completed are shown in Table 1. Completed requests by month are shown in Figure 2. The highest number of requests completed was 2017-18, with the lowest number in 2020-21 and as expected, there is lower demand during Christmas and Summer holidays.

Table 1: Completed Requests for Academic Years 2017-22

Figure 2: Completed Requests by Month for Academic Years 2017-2022

Requests were cancelled if the item was already available via our discovery system NELSON, the item was open access, it was a duplicate request, or we were unable to fulfil. The total number of requests that were cancelled are shown in Table 2. Cancelled requests by month are shown in Figure 3. The number of requests cancelled follows a similar pattern to those completed, with the highest number in 2017-18 and the lowest number in 2020-21.

Table 2: Cancelled Requests for Academic Years 2017-22

Figure 3: Cancelled Requests by Month for Academic Years 2017-22

5. Influencing Factors

While the figures clearly demonstrate a decrease in the number of ILL requests from our patrons, the figures cannot be considered in isolation. To understand these a bit more in our own context, I considered what the main influencing factors could be. There have been world events, changes at the university and within the library, which may all have had an impact on these results.

World Events

The most obvious world event which has impacted all ILL services is that of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like all organisations we had to temporarily suspend ILL requests for any physical items, but work continued from home on digital requests. Even when loaning of physical items resumed, not all libraries were able to return immediately to the usual level of service pre-pandemic, so the ability to request physical books was limited. The UON Academic Services team dealing with library acquisitions became more focussed on purchasing online content to enable students access to the resources they needed, when not able to be on campus. This was reflected in the ILL approach, where e-books were purchased when no physical item could be borrowed from another location. Inevitably, not all books exist in electronic form, which meant many requests, which would normally have been filled through the ILL process, could not be met. This is reflected in the dramatic drop in numbers for 2020-21.

University

The university itself is constantly evolving. In 2018 the university re-located its Park and Avenue campuses to a single site at Waterside, closer to Northampton town centre. The university library had already moved to purchasing e-first, so a large proportion of the collection could be accessed online.  In the lead up to the move there was a focus on collections management within the library, completing a review of what print stock was required. More recently the faculties were re-structured moving from four to three more focussed areas and in 2021, the university introduced semesterisation.

The collections review enabled the library to ensure the most relevant content was available, which may have decreased the need for students to request resources not held by the library. The introduction of semesterisation is most likely to impact the peaks of requests throughout the year, rather than the number of requests.

Library

The collections review undertaken as part of the pre-move preparation took place alongside the use of newly introduced reading list software. Talis Aspire was introduced pre-2017-18, however, the use of its review function for collection management was not implemented until 2017-18. This new process enabled more accurate collection management, ensuring the specific resources required for each course were known and purchased if possible. Again, this more focussed approach may have reduced the need for resources the library does not already own.

Whilst considering how managing collections may have affected the number of ILL requests, there are also potential barriers to consider. For an ILL request to be made, the patron was required to provide their unique PIN as part of accessing the ILL request form. This was used for other university functionality as well, such as accessing printers, before the move to Waterside. After the move, the PIN was only required for limited functions, such as borrowing a laptop. The reduced use of the PIN saw an increase in emails to the ILL inbox asking how to access their PIN. Answering these queries did not always convert into ILL requests being made.

6. Summary

It is clear the number of ILL requests has decreased significantly over the last five years and a combination of the events described may have played its part in that. There are all sorts of factors that can impact the delivery of an ILL service, some common to all and those unique to each organisation. Any change in those circumstances, however small, is likely to have some form of impact on services. While no definitive conclusions can be made, it is helpful to undertake this exploratory review as a starting point and then track what happens when further changes are made.

Since compiling the data for this review, the library has changed its library management system, implementing Alma mid-July 2022. From an ILL perspective there have been some changes to our processes, most notably removing the need to use a PIN to make an ILL request. Looking ahead it will be interesting to see how this change will impact these figures. Early indications are that it has had a significant impact on the number of requests. Something to explore further!