Interlending & Document Supply On document supply in Ireland and the USA: experiences at the Boole Library, Cork University Susanna Ashton, Article information: To cite this document: Susanna Ashton, (2007) "On document supply in Ireland and the USA: experiences at the Boole Library, Cork University", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 35 Issue: 4, pp.226-227, https://doi.org/10.1108/02641610710837545 Permanent link to this document: https://doi.org/10.1108/02641610710837545 Downloaded on: 21 May 2018, At: 12:04 (PT) References: this document contains references to 0 other documents. To copy this document: [email protected] The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 232 times since 2007* Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:156270 [] For Authors If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download. Downloaded by Clemson University At 12:04 21 May 2018 (PT) On document supply in Ireland and the USA: experiences at the Boole Library, Cork University Susanna Ashton Department of English, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA
Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare the Boole Library at Cork University, Ireland with university libraries in the USA in terms of resource sharing and inter-library lending. Design/methodology/approach – Comparisons are made between Boole Library and university libraries in the USA with reference to lack of funds and resources. The paper highlights the differences in funding of inter-library lending. Findings – Much could be said about how electronic resources are altering the landscape and future of interlibrary loan, but no media forms have evolved to entirely satisfy readers’ need to handle the physical book in front of them. Originality/value – One of the remarkable things about the physical book is what a superb technological form it is. Books are both portable and strong. There is still no better way to read lengthy texts. Although more people are requesting articles electronically, the demand for books seems to keep growing apace with the development of shared library catalogs.
Keywords Document delivery, University libraries, Ireland, United States of America
Paper type Viewpoint
Boole Library at Ireland’s University College Cork was not as books I had ordered from other libraries in Ireland and Britain luxurious as many American university libraries to which I had arrived and were ready for pickup. The librarian brought was accustomed. The carpets were worn and the book out 10 books for me, and I handed him my campus selection relatively small for such a strong research university. identification card, expecting I would check out the books, But the library sure was heavily used. I rarely found a time and that would be that. of day or night when I did not have to squeeze by students Instead, he asked me very pleasantly for 20 voucher tokens. chatting on the staircases, and it was often hard to find an I looked at him blankly and explained that I was a visiting open seat. faculty member with the English department and was I was on a Fulbright grant, spending an academic year in authorized to check out books. He asked me if the the city of Cork as a visiting scholar with the university’s department had given me any voucher tokens for my use English department. I was there to help teach American and assured me that the departments usually did their best to literature on a blessedly limited basis, (it is amazing how help faculty members cover their research expenses. much more attention you can lavish on students when you It turned out that he was essentially asking me to pay about Downloaded by Clemson University At 12:04 21 May 2018 (PT) have only 12 a semester instead of 85). $200 in interlibrary-loan fees. My book requests had been The other part of my time was to be spent doing research neither international nor urgent; I had ordered standard on the life and work of John Boyle O’Reilly, a 19th-century volumes available at standard rates. Yet the university policy Irishman deported to Australia for treason who managed to was to charge about $20 for each book request. escape to the United States and make a career as a poet, It had never occurred to me that there would be a fee, newspaperman, and civic activist. I hoped to spend my year in which is why I had inadvertently put in a request I could not afford. Ireland compiling and editing his poetry for an authoritative Although I discovered later that my host department would edition of his work. gladly have granted me some tokens to help cover the cost, I As research often does, though, my project moved in felt bad about draining its already limited resources. From unpredictable directions. It turned around at a moment when that point on, I decided to pay my own interlibrary-loan fee or I came to appreciate something very special about my university not order the books at all. privileges back home, and even about my American heritage. Ultimately, I did not request many books I needed, and my My realization came at the interlibrary loan desk. Earlier research project foundered. that day I had received a note informing me that various In the weeks that followed, I developed a deep appreciation for the abundance of great bookstores in Ireland, a reflection The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at of a very literate culture. After a brief panic over being forced www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-1615.htm to change my usual research methods, I also began to rethink my research agenda.
Interlending & Document Supply 35/4 (2007) 226–227 This piece appeared originally in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0264-1615] March 14, 2007 and is reprinted here with their kind permission and that [DOI 10.1108/02641610710837545] of the author.
226 On document supply in Ireland and the USA Interlending & Document Supply Susanna Ashton Volume 35 · Number 4 · 2007 · 226–227
In a moment for which I will always be grateful to both the The exchange of books between public and private Fulbright program and the Irish passion for literature and institutions in the United States is not a quid-pro-quo storytelling, I turned my work around and spent the rest of system, either. Just because Harvard lends more than it the year writing a screenplay about the life of John Boyle receives does not stop it from participating. University O’Reilly – outlaw, poet, and activist. libraries like mine borrow more than they lend, and yet In the meantime, I started to think a lot about American resource-sharing groups generally do not blackball us from libraries and the privileges they offer scholars. membership. Libraries had always been a particularly important but The system works precisely because it helps everyone. If too somewhat taken-for-granted part of my life: My mother is a many libraries withdraw from the sharing systems because librarian, and I am a scholar with a specialization in the they believe they are incurring more costs than benefits, the materiality of books, the diversity of print cultures in America, system falls apart. Interlibrary lending only works when, in and library history. I should have been well aware of what a some fundamental way, libraries consider all of us to be their precious thing free or cheap interlibrary lending is for virtually patrons. They must have the foresight and the imagination to every student, scholar, and recreational reader in the United see that all knowledge in some way, someday, will serve States. everyone. What goes around may, both literally and But, like most academics, it had never occurred to me. If figuratively, come around. anything, interlibrary loan was always a necessity I faced with Much could be said about how electronic resources are irritation, hating the prospect of filling out more forms. altering the landscape and future of interlibrary loan, but no I have since learned that interlibrary lending is not free at all media forms have evolved to entirely satisfy readers’ need to but a gift paid for by every American taxpayer. The average handle the physical book in front of them. One of the American probably does not know it, but interlibrary lending remarkable things about the physical book is what a superb in the United States costs somewhat more than what the University College Cork was charging to cover its expenses. technological form it is. Books are both portable and strong. The national average seems to be about $22 to borrow a book There is still no better way to read lengthy texts. Although and $12 to lend one, according to statistics from the more people are requesting articles electronically, the demand Association of Research Libraries. for books seems to keep growing apace with the development That adds up to a transaction cost of well over $30 for each of shared library catalogs. volume. Even when patrons at private or public libraries in the Michael Gorman is immediate past president of the United States are asked to pay for the service, the charge is American Library Association and, until he retired in usually minimal and does not go far toward actually offsetting December, dean of library services at California State the true cost of the practice. For the most part, libraries University at Fresno. In a recent phone conversation, he silently eat the costs. told me that while one might think that interlibrary lending is The significance of that sacrifice goes largely unnoticed. It a risky enterprise and that the danger of losing books to is not the sexiest line on a library budget. But there is irresponsible patrons considerable, the opposite has actually something profoundly democratic, surprisingly proved true. compassionate, and deeply civic in sharing our national “One of the most remarkable things about the interlibrary resources in this manner. loan system is that users do tend to treat the books with The monetary sacrifice of the loan, along with the special care”, he said. “Indeed, damage and loss to relinquishing of a physical book that represents a interlibrary-loan books is minuscule compared to the considerable investment on the part of the providing library, damage and loss found with books in regular circulation.” is even more astonishing during an era in which we hear daily You might think that all that handling and transportation reports about budget cuts to public, school, and research would damage books out on interlibrary loan, but that is not Downloaded by Clemson University At 12:04 21 May 2018 (PT) libraries in every state. The American Library Association the case either. Even though patrons are not paying directly notes that cuts in library funds that have been announced in for the privilege of use, we evidently treat those books as the media in the past four years have been immense, fragile guests, deserving of care. amounting to about $188-million. Libraries are hardly in a Even more heartening is Gorman’s observation that position to waste money by serving distant patrons and taking interlibrary lending is “the only professional service I can the risk of never getting their books back. And yet, they do. think of in which the provider pays the cost”. The faith our Most of the time I do not notice where the books I request libraries show in the ability of that service to somehow, come from. I am just glad to see them. I rely upon my library someday, contribute to a greater good is remarkable, and yet to track them down for me and I rarely pay attention to the usually goes unremarked. library marks that function as passport stamps telling me The greatest resource sharing our libraries practice is about the book’s journey. sharing their faith in us. Sometimes I notice the insignias of Emory or Vanderbilt, private universities that do not balk at sharing materials with me, a scholar at a public institution in the rural South. But at least they are regional neighbours. They know where I live, as About the author it were. How much more generous are the small public libraries in Susanna Ashton was a Fulbright scholar to the Republic of Connecticut that send me 19th-century schoolbooks, or the Ireland and is associate professor of English at Clemson historical-society libraries in Oregon and Iowa that lend me University in South Carolina. She can be contacted at: obscure 19th-century town histories. [email protected]
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1. Avril PattersonJames Joyce Library, University College Dublin, Dublin, Republic of Ireland. 2008. Linchpin or weakest link? Challenges to current document delivery practice and services. Interlending & Document Supply 36:4, 191-195. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] 2. Mike McGrathEditor, Interlending & Document Supply, Leeds, UK. 2007. Interlending and document supply: a review of the recent literature: 61. Interlending & Document Supply 35:4, 211-218. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] Downloaded by Clemson University At 12:04 21 May 2018 (PT)