How free we are: survey of the Italian policy in the document supply service

1
How free we are survey of the Italian policy
in the document supply service
Rosalia FERRARA - Donatella GENTILI - Vittorio
PONZANI
Istituto Superiore di Sanità - Library, Rome
(Italy)
X EAHIL Conference Cluj-Napoca, September 15th
2006
2
INTRODUCTION
Over the past ten years the information
landscape has witnessed considerable changes,
accompanied by the emergence of a new set of
challenges

• OA movement

Internet
enables users to search autonomously for
information and even, in some cases, to gain
immediate access to the full-text of relevant
articles
is leading to major changes in the approach of
publishers to the distribution of information and
is opening up new frontiers to researchers in
their quest for access to documents
3
As a consequence the library services have also
been affected by developments in digital
technology and the Internet
Notwithstanding this the document delivery
service (DDS) has preserved its role, because
large volumes of documents are not freely
available online
There is lively debate on the controversial
issue of whether or not this service should be
paid for
4
The scope of this study is to analyse the
Italian situation and to evaluate the policies -
free or fee-based that biomedical libraries are
pursuing in the provision of the DDS
Contents

• The Italian context
• The survey
• DD at ISS Library

5
THE ITALIAN CONTEXT
Italy has no consolidated tradition of
cooperation in the library and document delivery
spheres. Italian programmes for coordination in
these areas are varied and the panorama is
somewhat segmented  
Union catalogues
Consortia
DD coopeartive initiatives
6
THE ITALIAN CONTEXT Union calalogues

• Since the 70s the first projects of national
  union catalogues were launched and the main union
  catalogues currently used in Italy are the
  following

SBN Union catalogue of Italian libraries that
have joined the National Library Service
ACNP Italian union catalogue of serials, which
collects data on the holdings and services of
Italian libraries
SBBL Library system of the Lombardia Region in
the biomedical field
GIDIF,RBM Union catalogue of the Italian Group
of documentalists of the pharmaceutical industry
7
THE ITALIAN CONTEXT Consortia

• In Italy there are three main consortia
  covering different geographical areas

CILEA Northern Italian library consortium 1974
10 Lombardy universities
CIPE Central-Northeastern Italian library
consortium 1999 12 universities
CIBER/CASPUR Central-Southern Italian library
consortium 1999 27 universities
A project is under way to bring representatives
from each consortium together in a nation-wide
coordinating committee
8
THE ITALIAN CONTEXT DD cooperative initiatives

• At the end of the 90s two new library
  networks were launched - in cooperation with the
  ACNP catalogue - with the specific aim of
  promoting and improving the document supply
  service among participant libraries at the
  national level

BIBLIOSAN Cooperative network of 55 libraries of
biomedical research institutes aimed to integrate
the information resources of the participating
institutes. BIBLIOSAN libraries join ACNP
catalogue and NILDE network
NILDE Network InterLibrary Document Exchanging
Web-based document delivery system aimed to
promote cooperation among Italian libraries for
improving DDS
9
THE SURVEYSources
The analysis was carried out on the basis of the
union catalogue of serials ACNP, the major
resource for biomedical libraries in the
identification and location of documents as well
as in the acquisition of information about
library holdings and services
Whenever the ACNP data were either incomplete or
not up to date, the libraries web sites were
consulted, where available
10
THE SURVEYCriteria of selection of libraries
Libraries specialized in biology, medicine,
public health and related sciences
Centralized University libraries
(inter-departmental and area libraries)
Libraries of pharmaceutical firms whose data were
not updated in ACNP were excluded
As a result, out of the about 900 ACNP libraries
covering biomedical and related fields, 253
(nearly 30 of the total) were analysed for the
scope of this study
11
THE SURVEY Results Types of libraries
53 academic/research environment 37
hospital world 10 other biomedical
organizations
12
THE SURVEYResults Library holdings
The data relating to collection size in this
study refer only to printed journals, as
information regarding collections of e-journals
is not included in ACNP and is seldom available
on the libraries web-sites
Besides, the size of e-journal collections was
considered to be outside the scope of this
study, since it does not affect the free or
fee-based policies adopted by libraries for their
DD service
48 medium-small sized collection 29 less
than 101 journals 23 more than 500 journals
13
THE SURVEYResults DD service
45 exchange/free basis 15 hybrid system
(fee or free/exchange) 5 fee basis 35 no
DDS
14
THE SURVEYResults DD user groups
As a rule, libraries that supply a fee-based DD
service effectively do so to both libraries and
end-users they are generally medium- sized or
large libraries that are obliged to amortize the
considerable costs of subscriptions, staff and
facilities
15
THE ISS LIBRARY
Library specializes in scientific documentation
with special emphasis on biomedical and public
health fields
Library holdings

• 9,000 printed journals
• 4,800 e-journals
• 200,000 monographs

• Special collections of
• Rare books (XVI-XX cent.)
• WHO documents

16
DD AT THE ISS LIBRARY The history

• The policy governing the DD service at ISS
  Library has seeen two phases

Until May 1998 the DD service was provided free
of charge at the national level, within the
framework of a policy of cooperation with other
biomedical libraries
-
Since June 1998 the DD has been governed by
Ministerial Decree (DM) 1/6/1998 (later replaced
by DM 6/3/2000) which introduced a fee-based
system
17
DD AT THE ISS LIBRARY A hybrid system

• The same decree also provides for documents to
  be supplied free to authorised institutions and
  users.

The ISS Library thus in effect offers a hybrid
service, which is provided free of charge in the
following cases
-
A considerable number of transactions are
completed free or on exchange basis in 2005
these accounted for 56 of the total

• Whenever the request comes from a developing
  country

• Whenever users request a WHO publication

• Whenever the request comes from a participant in
  a library network with which there is an official
  document exchange agreement

18
CONCLUSIONS

• Notes about the survey results The analysis of
  ACNP data clearly shows that

60 of Italian libraries adopt a policy based on
the free supply of documents, even though 15 of
them adopted a hybrid system
5 provide a DD service exclusively on a fee basis
35 do not provide a DD service at all
47 of the total have joined initiatives launched
specifically to promote the exchange of documents
( such as NILDE)
47 this is particularly of interest in a
country like Italy where policies of cooperation
are still somewhat undeveloped
19
Notes about the future of DDS at ISS The
present study also provided an opportunity to
examine the DD service offered by the ISS Library
within the Italian context and to evaluate the
future of DDS at ISS
The future development of the DD service at the
ISS Library depends above all on the policy of
the parent institution, although there has always
been a tendency to conform with policies adopted
by other libraries the current trend is to
continue with the hybrid system with a view to
improving the service

20
Two initiatives are currently under way
1. To reduce the cost of the DD service and to
simplify invoicing procedures
2. To introduce a new payment system based on POS
technology which will allow users to pay online
with a credit card
21
Finally
it is possible to say that a more general
examination of the future place of the DD service
in the library world is necessary
Above all, it is important to evaluate the role
of libraries as suppliers of documents in the
digital age and to monitor closely the changes
taking place in the information world, in order
to understand how the DD policy will be affected
and how improvements can be made
22
Thanks for your attention !
lferrara_at_iss.it donatella.gentili_at_iss.it ponzani_at_
iss.it