Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on interlibrary loan and document delivery requests

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic affected many library services and operations. Because of uncertainty around safety measures and face-to-face interactions, each library reacted differently and planned to find the best solutions for their patrons and employees while following different administrative guidelines and expectations. Library employees experienced and observed the impacts and the challenges of the pandemic first-hand. In this study, we examined changes in the pattern of Interlibrary Loan (ILL) and Document Delivery (DD) services. We collected and prepared transactional data from the ILLiad system in a library of a tier 1 research university. The sample included request and loan records in the fall semesters of 2016 through 2020. We designed and performed three statistical tests to compare fall 2019, which was the semester right before the pandemic, with 2020, during which restrictive measures were in place. Results show in fall 2020 our faculty requests decreased, electronic requests increased, and request fulfillment was slower, significantly. Results of this research can help understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on library services and plan accordingly.

Keywords:

• Academic libraries
• COVID-19 pandemic
• data analysis
• document delivery
• interlibrary loan