Abstract

87% of survey respondents are involved in some form of resource sharing. Activities include participation in DOCLINE, production of union lists and catalogues, interlibrary loan, document delivery, membership in consortiums and informal networks. Responses indicated that libraries engage in a broad range of resource sharing activities.

The CHLA/ABSC Task Force on Resource Sharing was created at the Fall 1994 CHLA/ABSC Board Meeting to coordinate activities in response to emerging resource sharing issues for health libraries. Building upon the excellent work of the first Task Force, the Task Force on Resource Sharing 2 (RSTF2) sent all 1997 CHLA/ABSC Canadian members (339) a survey entitled "Evaluation of serial, union list and resource sharing activities" in late September 1997.

By October 31, 1997, 123 completed surveys were returned, and 122 (2 were from the same institution) were compiled for analysis. For the purposes of this survey, the 36% return rate provides a "snapshot picture" of the practices and trends in resource sharing activities of the membership, and identifies broad trends.

Who were our respondents?

What type of library are you working in? (Question 1)

55% of our respondents are employed in a hospital library. The next largest category is academic libraries at 19% , with the remainder divided between government libraries, and the category "other", which includes treatment centres, research units, association libraries, pharmaceutical libraries, to name a few.

Figure 1

What is the size of your library holdings;

Number of current serial subscriptions? (Question 2a)

61% of the responding libraries subscribe to 250 journals or less, while 15% of responding libraries report collections of greater than 750 subscriptions.

Figure 2

Number of library monograph holdings? (Question 2b)

Almost half of the responding libraries report a monograph collection of 1001 to 5000 items. One fifth report collections of more than 10,001 monographs.

Electronic Mail Access

94% of those replying have access to electronic mail, and almost all of them access it by Internet. 25% of libraries indicate that they are using Envoy 100 as well.

DOCLINE/SERHOLD & AMICUS

DOCLINE

DOCLINE is the U.S. National Library of Medicine's (NLM) automated interlibrary loan and referral system. Using serials holdings information contained in the NLM SERHOLD database, DOCLINE libraries can create ILL requests that will route automatically to participating libraries according to a routing table created when the library joins the system. DOCLINE libraries can also direct requests to specific libraries. (Web sites for more information on DOCLINE)

The growth trend in Canadian libraries participating in DOCLINE is continuing. As of February 1998, 134 Canadian libraries were participating in DOCLINE, while another 48 were in the application process.

Is your library currently participating in DOCLINE? (Question 10a)

One third (32.8%) of responding libraries are currently participating in DOCLINE.

Type of library currently participating in DOCLINE

47.8% of responding academic libraries are DOCLINE participants, while 50% of responding government libraries use DOCLINE. 28.8% of responding hospital libraries are DOCLINE participants, while 13.3% of other libraries use DOCLINE.

Figure 3

Number of serial subscriptions related to DOCLINE participation

24% of responding libraries with serial subscriptions of 250 or less are DOCLINE participants. 52.9% of responding libraries with serial subscriptions of between 251-750 titles are DOCLINE participants. 55.6% of responding libraries with greater than 751 serial subscriptions use DOCLINE.

Figure 4

SERHOLD is the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) database of machine-readable holdings statements for biomedical serial titles held by U.S. and selected Canadian libraries. (Web link for more information on SERHOLD)

Are your holdings in SERHOLD? (Question 11a)

52.5% of responding libraries have their holdings in SERHOLD.

What route did you use for reporting to SERHOLD? (Question 12)

( From those 64 libraries who were reporting to SERHOLD, Fall 1997)

The two SERHOLD reporting routes used by the greatest number of libraries were Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) (46.9%) and Paul Ward (40.6%).

Figure 5

AMICUS is the bilingual information system of the National Library of Canada (NLC). Access AMICUS is a fee-based search service which allows Canadian libraries and researchers to search the entire AMICUS database for cataloguing support, interlibrary loan purposes, reference, and information verification. Of greatest concern is that the holdings in AMICUS are NOT current.

Data collected regarding libraries reporting to AMICUS indicated that only a small number of libraries are reporting their holdings to AMICUS. While there may be several reasons for this, a major impediment for DOCLINE libraries is that their SERHOLD data is in a format that cannot be loaded into AMICUS. Therefore, if they wish to participate in DOCLINE and contribute to AMICUS, the holdings have to be formatted and submitted twice.

Is there a role for AMICUS in health libraries? Potentially, AMICUS can provide access to monographs, and to non-STM (scientific/technical/medical) journal titles.

Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery

How many interlibrary loan requests to borrow did your library generate in the past 12 months? (By type of library) (Question 21)

How many interlibrary loan requests to lend did your library fill in the past 12 months? ( By type of library) (Question 22)

Figure 6

A variety of ILL management software is used by libraries, including commercial products or in-house programs. Those libraries with larger journal collections, and libraries with a higher volume of interlibrary loan activity are more likely to be using an interlibrary loan management software. The two management software programs used by the greatest number of libraries are AVISO and Quickdoc.

Z39.50

Beginning in the early 1990's, vendors and software developers in Canada and the United States began to implement information retrieval systems based on the ANSI/NISO Z39.50 standard. Although implementation of the standard initially was slow a recent survey of libraries and vendors conducted by National Library of Canada for its vCuc (Virtual Canadian Union Catalogue) project revealed that Z39.50 is being implemented in all types of libraries.

In terms of resource sharing and document delivery Z39.50 is potentially a very useful primary information retrieval tool because of its ability to search multiple remote library databases in a single session and its common interface across a variety of vendor implementations. (Web links for more information on Z39.50)

What is your level of understanding of the Z39.50 standard of information retrieval among library catalogues? (Question 22a)

Only 17.8% of respondents had intermediate/advanced knowledge of the Z39.50 standard, while the majority of respondents (82.2%) had preliminary or no knowledge.

Figure 7

Is your library using a Z39.50 interface to search other library collections for document delivery purposes? (Question 23)

Only 10% of responding libraries report usage of Z39.50 for document delivery purposes, however 4% report Z39.50 usage for other purposes.

When does your library plan to implement Z39.50? (Question 24)

A quarter of respondents (25.3%) plan to implement Z39.50 within two years, while 22.8% intend never to implement. Half the respondents (51.9%) gave a variety of responses, with the majority replying "Don't know" about implementation.

If your library is not planning to implement Z39.50. please state why (Question 25)

Again, a variety of responses were given, but several indicated that further information was required.

Answers to the Z39.50 survey questions indicate to RSTF2 that as NLC's survey revealed, there are a growing number of CHLA/ABSC libraries who will have implemented Z39.50 within 2 years. This fact, combined with the number of respondents who indicated the need for more information about Z39.50, provides RSTF2 with a clear mandate: to continue providing Z39.50 information to CHLA/ABSC members, especially those in smaller government and hospital libraries.

In addition, it will be crucial to monitor future developments and enhancements, particularly regarding common standards for serial detailed and summary holdings so crucial for interlibrary loan activity.

Concluding Remarks

From the preliminary analysis, RSTF2 identified activities concerning communication and education as our priorities. Recognizing the importance of ongoing contact with the National Library of Canada (NLC) and the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI), RSTF2 organized a joint meeting with representatives from both institutions on 20 February 1998. Discussions from that meeting appeared in the Summer 1998 (vol. 19, no. 4) issue of BMC.

The Task Force welcomes any comments you may have concerning this report, or our work in general.

Carole Brault (carole.brault@crchul.ulaval.ca)
Centre de recherche du centre hospitalier de l'université Laval

Judith Coughlan-Lambly (jclambly@is.dal.ca)
Dalhousie University

Toni Janik (library@MNSi.Net)
Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital Library

Lynn Kozun (lkozun@health.gov.sk.ca)
Saskatchewan Health

Anne Smithers (abs@stauffer.queensu.ca
Queen's University