INTERNATIONAL POSTAL SERVICES : A STUDY OF THEIR EFFICIENCY IN RELATION TO INTER‐LIBRARY LOAN AND PHOTOCOPY SERVICES

Interlibrary loan/photocopy systems can be compared on several grounds including speed, cost and satisfaction rate. This paper looks at the first and examines the viability of one or more international centres providing back‐up services to national library resources. The study was carried out at the British Library Lending Division and is based on the time taken for requests to be received from all over the world and for items to be despatched to the same places. Figures are presented which enable total turn‐round times to be calculated for each country. They show for instance that requests from Western Europe can be dealt with in less than two weeks and that requesters in Australia can hope to receive photocopies 15 days after despatching their requests.