Unmediated document delivery: a project using FirstSearch and EBSCOdoc

Staffing costs account for 65 per cent of research libraries’ expenditures for interlibrary borrowing. Due to this cost and pressure to provide better access, library administrators are showing an increased interest in unmediated document delivery. In a pilot project at Texas A&M University, faculty and graduate students in the Agricultural Economics Department used ArticleFirst, PapersFirst, and EBSCOdoc as a substitute for traditional interlibrary loan. Participants could order materials not owned by the three university libraries. Four document suppliers, the British Library Document Supply Centre, EBSCOdoc, ISI’s Genuine Article and UMI were used. Users were allowed to select the vendor and method of delivery which included fax, mail, Ariel, and express mail. Data gathered included the usage patterns for the different delivery methods and document suppliers, the costs of items, problems encountered by users, and general information on user satisfaction.