Porting the ACORN (Access to Course Readings via Networks) model from Loughborough University to Leicester University

Project ACORN (Access to Course Readings via Networks) sits within the Electronic Short Loan strand of the Electronic Libraries (eLib) Programme and has been developed by a team at the Pilkington Library at Loughborough University. Having established procedures for making journal articles in short loan collections available electronically, the next stage was to test the portability of these procedures to Leicester University. This paper describes a study undertaken by the Project ACORN team to investigate the portability of the technical model by implementing it at Leicester University, and discusses the main challenges faced (authentication and printing), the solutions proposed by the ACORN team, some possible future solutions, and recommendations for libraries looking to set up an ACORN‐type service.