Academic Library Resource Sharing Program Benchmarks

Academic Library Resource Sharing Program Benchmarks

This study looks closely at the book and other resource sharing programs that academic libraries maintain with library partners, opening one another’s collections to one another’s library patrons. The report gives detailed data on the types of materials shared, with separate data sets for books, journals, magazines and other periodicals, audio-visual materials, textbooks and special collections – with separate data sets for each type of material. In addition, the report looks at library plans to expand or contract such arrangements and measures the percentage of library patron book borrowing accounted for by access through such arrangements. The study also relates the mean and median percentage of a library’s holdings subject to such arrangements and looks at issues of standardization of borrowing terms. In open ended question, the survey participants comment on their future plans.

Just a few of this 54-page report’s many findings are that:

A shade more than 12% of survey respondents share textbooks.

Survey respondents were sharing their collections with a median of 10 and a mean of 24.54 institutional partners.

9.1% of respondents said that borrowing terms were completely standardized among all of their institutional partners.

Data in the report is based on detailed interviews with resource sharing program directors from 33 colleges and universities; data is presented in the aggregate and broken out for college/university size, type, public/private status, and tuition level.