ILL User Survey Oct-Nov 2012

Seattle Public Library (UOK)

Martin Burgess & Karen Barnesill@spl.org

What we

learned from

OCLC

Where’s the data?

DUT ENG FRE GER ITA JPN LAT RUS SPA ZXX0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Most borrowed items were in English

17951910

19201922

19281931

19431947

19491952

19601962

19661968

19701972

19741977

19801982

19841986

19881990

19921994

19961998

20002002

20042006

20082010

20120

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Most borrowed items were published in last 4 years.

Majority of ILL material held at

Central Library for pickup

MONBAL

BEA BROCAP

CEN COLDLR DTH FR

EGLK

GWD HIP IDC LC

YMAG

MGMMOB

NETNGA

PDFQNA

RBESP

ASW

TUNI

WAL

WTS

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Majority of items were works of fiction

AP - Peri

odicals

B - Philo

sophy, P

sychology,

Religion

C - Hist

ory (G

eneal

ogy, Biogra

phy)

D - World

history;

History

of Europe

E - Hist

ory of U

nited St

ates

F - Hist

ory of N

orth Ameri

ca

G - Geo

graphy, a

nthropology, re

creati

on

H - Socia

l Scien

ces

J - Politi

cal Sc

ience

K - Law

L - Ed

ucation

M - Music

& books on m

usic

N - Fine A

rts

Newsp

aper

P - Lan

guage

and Lit

erature

Q - Scie

nce

R -Med

icine

S - Agri

cultu

re

T - Te

chnology

U - Milit

ary Sc

ience

V - Nava

l Scien

ce

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Distribution of requests by format

Book Computer File Manuscript Microform Musical Score Newspaper Serial Sound Recording0

50

100

150

200

250

300

What we learned

from

Horizon

Age of ILL patrons by decade

20 to 30 30 to 40 40 to 50 50 to 60 60 to 70 70 to 80 80 to 90 90 +0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Oct 15, 2012

Oct 29, 2012

age

Majority of ILL customers were Seattle residents.

civ kcad krl mob nrem srad srsen0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Oct 29Oct 15

Majority of ILL customers live in north end of Seattle.

North

west S

eattl

e (98

103,

981

07, 9

8117

, 981

33)

North

east

(981

45, 9

8105

, 981

15, 9

8125

, 981

65)

Mag

nolia

/ Que

en A

nne (

9810

9, 9

8119

, 981

99)

Down

town,

Cap

itol H

ill (9

8101

, 981

04, 9

8121

, 981

12, 9

8122

)

Capi

tol H

ill / L

ake U

nion

(981

02)

Cent

ral D

istric

t (98

144)

Wes

t Sea

ttle (

9811

6, 9

8136

, 981

26, 9

8106

)So

uthe

ast S

eattl

e (98

118)

Shor

eline

(981

77)

Both

ell (9

8021

)Fe

dera

l Way

(980

63)

Snoh

omish

(982

90)

Bain

brid

ge Is

land

(981

10)

Kenm

ore (

9802

8)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Oct 29Oct 15

Total number of ILL checkouts

Median household income by neighborhood

What we learned

from the

Fee Counter

Number of requests per patron

1 2 3 4 6 9 100

20

40

60

80

100

120

110

19

85

1 1 2

number of requests

# of

pat

rons

What we learned from the

User Survey

Two versions of User Survey

Print survey Electronic survey

The 3 survey questions

Purpose for obtaining material through ILL

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Entertainment/relaxation/enjoymentstudy/homework/educationjob hunting/career/work-relatedwriting/publicationpersonal research

A common theme

Respondents very enthusiastically and overwhelming appreciate and value the interlibrary loan service :

“Interlibrary Loan has helped me research my family”

“Availability of ILL enormously expands the scope of SPL’s service”

“Most books I read are old and out of print. The only other way to read them is to buy them which I often do after first reading them through this service”

“Exactly what I wanted. Great service. Thanks”

“I am so glad our library can do this because I read a lot of books that our library does not have”

“I’m glad I didn’t have to travel to Pennsylvania to view this microfilm”

“SPL interlibrary loan service is excellent, a very valuable service”

“This is an outstanding service efficiently carried out. I’ve used it several times. Thank you!”

“Just glad this [ILL] is an option! Thank you!”

What about the $5 fee?

More respondents supported the $5 fee :

“Nice not to have to purchase”“Would have cost me $$$ to purchase used”“I’d rather pay the $5 fee to the library, than buy the book used on Amazon”“it is definitely worth the $5.00!”“ILL is a great service. Thanks for providing it at a reasonable price!”

than questioned the fee :

“ILL is fast, efficient—but expensive”“$5 for a ILL seems like too much—surely more than the actual cost to administer”“The $5 per item fee is too high”

The typical ILL patron :

approximately 60-year old individual who likes to read fiction, published in the last several years, in English and who prefers to pick his items up at the Central Library, lives in the north end of the city of Seattle, and only submits one ILL request a month

What does it all mean?

Resources

• http://www.stats.oclc.org/ (OCLC Usage Statistics - link on WS-ILL homepage)

• http://www.surveymonkey.com/ (online survey tool)

• http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml (income data)