Does (No) Discovery Lead to (ILL) Delivery? Comparing Transaction Logs to ILL Requests to Determine the Persistence of Library Patrons

Abstract

This study looks at known-item searches within a university catalog that come up with a “no results” response to see whether patrons will then place an ILL request for that material and how persistent a user might be in order to obtain something that they want. Catalog search transaction logs were compared against interlibrary loan (ILL) requests placed during the same time frame. Overall, the rate of persistence, or the frequency with which ILL requests were placed when no results were found in the catalog is very low.

Keywords:

• Interlibrary loan
• search queries
• known-item searches

Acknowledgment

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in IUScholarWorks at http://hdl.handle.net/2022/22102

Notes

1 Faculty include tenure track Administrators, Librarians, Researchers, Visiting Scientists and Academic Specialists