– This paper seeks to explore five forces likely to significantly affect interlending operations in the near term: the transition from print to electronic resources; management of legacy print collections; mass digitization projects; competition from other information providers; and copyright.
– The author uses data from authoritative sources to illustrate the effects these forces are having and will continue to have on libraries and ILL operations.
– The author predicts that most libraries will be slow to divest themselves of print monographs on a large scale; libraries will continue to build new offsite storage facilities but put more thought into their contents; increased discoverability of digitized texts and greater copyright restrictions will drive users to print; librarians will make gray areas of copyright law work for them instead of against them; publishers, librarians, authors, lawyers, and scholars will find a responsible and fair solution to providing digital access to “orphan” works; and ILL will persist as a core operation for nearly all libraries.
– This paper provides a unique look at forces that are shaping the future of global ILL activities.
