Editorial

Citation

Mak, C. and Hollerich, M. (2012), "Editorial", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 40 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2012.12240caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Interlending & Document Supply, Volume 40, Issue 3

Since the days of scrolls and papyrus libraries and librarians have adapted to new technologies. From the days when paper and parchment were too valuable to waste space on spaces between words, words are now reduced to ones and zeros. Whether codex, mass-produced books, microfiche, or CDs, the format of a book was still physical, something tangible you could hold in your hand. By contrast, e-books are presenting libraries with an intangible format that cannot yet effectively be made available through interlending.

Journals have always been compiled with the assumption that they would be consumed article-by-article. Document delivery of articles, for all the debates on scan and send, was relatively easy because each article could be considered as a work unto itself. Books, with the exception of reference books and anthologies, are compiled largely for consumption as a whole. With indexing services including book chapters and conference proceedings we are seeing a change in user behaviour. Researchers are no longer requesting books exclusively as entire works but as specific chapters that have special relevance to their research. At the same time, e-books have added a new set of challenges as publishers and librarians seek to define how content may be shared. Indeed, there is more than one way the content can be purchased, with print versions available easily and the electronic versions requiring contract negotiations.

These twin challenges – i.e.changes in user behaviour combined with a format that is not yet fully shareable – are the subject of two of the articles in this issue of Interlending & Document Supply.

The open access movement has potential for addressing at least a portion of e-format challenges because it addresses the intellectual property rights by simply taking them out of consideration. This issue includes an article, based on a paper delivered at IFLA’s 12th Interlending and Document Supply Conference in Chicago, covering the state of open access in Turkey. This issue also includes an inventory of the technical readiness of Nigerian academic libraries and the challenges they encounter as they embark on one resource sharing initiative after another. The list of challenges and the self-perceived comfort level with technology seem all too familiar.

Mike McGrath’s literature review includes a long section on open access and another section on scholarly communications. These two areas are interdependent; we, as a profession, will need to address them together. So important are they to the future of libraries in general and resource sharing in particular that this journal will be dedicating a Special Issue to open access in 2012.

As this issue goes to press the two of us will be headed to the American Library Association Annual Conference in Anaheim, California. Electronic formats, open access, international interlibrary loan, and process improvement will be the subjects of many conversation and presentations. The exhibit hall will play host to countless related products and services. We do not expect to find the final response to the issue of e-books and resource sharing, but we can be sure the discussion will be lively!

Collette Mak, Mary Hollerich