On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 2:31 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Interlibrary loans at your university (or public library) are not free at all. They are just free for *you*, because your university picks up the tab for you. The average cost of an item borrowed through ILL at a typical mid-size university is between $20-$30 per item. (google: "average cost interlibrary loan", find lots of studies to this effect). This, however, is part of the cost of doing research.
That's interesting...mind telling my resident University of Zurich librarians that bit, should you ever meet them at a conference? I currently get charged (and yes, the figures are the same nevermind whether I use it as member of the public or as enrolled student or as faculty member)
7 Swiss francs for books from other libraries in the German-part-of-Switzerland university libraries network 10 Swiss francs for books from the rest of Switzerland 20 Swiss francs for books from Europe minus Great Britain 35 Swiss francs for books from Great Britain 45 Swiss francs for books from the United States "depending on how much it actually cost *us* " for books from all the other countries
Would love to hear some more experiences on this: Is it common in the US / UK for academic libraries not to charge at all for ILLs? Then I'm ever so slightly envious...
Michael