INTERLENDING SERVICES IN TURKISH UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

The article begins with an overview of the current situation in Turkish university libraries, which were badly affected by the economic crisis of 1977–82. In 1982 the Higher Education Council (HEC) approved the centralization of university libraries, and HECDOC (HEC Documentation and International Literature Search Centre) was set up in order to develop a national collection of serials in support of university library collections. Up to now, interlending in Turkish university libraries has been largely neglected, not helped by a law which makes librarians personally responsible for all losses from their library. A survey of 28 university libraries has shown that current use of ILL services is not great, with the various libraries disagreeing in their attitudes to charging for ILL. HECDOC provides 55% of satisfied ILL requests and it is hoped that the creation of a union catalogue of serials, together with a standard photocopy request form, will increase this. Collection development in Turkish university libraries is seriously affected by declining budgets, rising literature costs and a shortage of hard currency. Resource sharing, including ILL, is seen as one way of solving these problems.