Document Delivery
Borrowing Statistics
These are requests made by Tennessee Tech patrons to borrow items from other libraries.
| ANNUAL BORROWING | |||||
| 2023-2024 | 2022-2023 | 2021-2022 | 2020-2021 | 2019-2020 | |
| Requests | 9,963 | 7,019 | 5,914 | 5,800 | 6,260 |
| Filled | 9,402 | 6,637 | 5,430 | 5,243 | 5,761 |
| Fill Rate | 94.37% | 94.56%* | 91.82%* | 90.40%* | 92.03%* |
*Fill rate includes all materials received from ILL, Google Scholar, library-owned items, etc.
| BORROWING DETAILS | |||||||
| Total Requests | Total Filled Through ILL | Filled Physical Items | Average Turnaround Time - Physical Items | Filled Articles | Average Turnaround Time - Articles | Total Unfilled | |
| 2023-2024 | 9,963 | 9,402 | 567 | 8.4 days | 8,835 | 13.8 hours | 561 |
| 2022-2023 Rapido^ | 4,514 | 4,311 | 163 | 9.4 days | 4,148 | 11.9 hours | 203 |
| 2022-2023 ILLiad^ | 2,505 | 1,800 | 309 | 8.5 days | 1,491 | 4.6 days | 705 |
| 2021-2022 | 5,914 | 4,202 | 844 | 9.4 days | 3,358 | 2.7 days | 1,689 |
| 2020-2021 | 5,800 | 4,132 | 813 | 13.1 days | 3,319 | 2.7 days | 1,668 |
| 2019-2020 | 6,260 | 4,503 | 754 | n/a | 3,749 | n/a | 1,757 |
^ILLiad usage ended in December, 2022; Rapido (ILL in EagleSearch) began January, 2023.
Requests by User Type / Status
These are requests made by Tennessee Tech users to borrow items from other libraries.
| BORROWING REQUESTS BY STATUS | |||||
| 2023-2024 | 2022-2023 | 2021-2022 | 2020-2021 | 2019-2020 | |
| Employee | 1,904 | 1,695 | 1,726 | 2,138 | 2,340 |
| Graduate | 5,038 | 2,954 | 1,735 | 1,975 | 1,903 |
| Undergraduate | 3,021 | 2,370 | 2,431 | 1,807 | 2,145 |
| TOTALS: | 9,963 | 7,019 | 5,892 | 5,920 | 6,388 |
Lending Statistics
These are requests made by other libraries to borrow Tennessee Tech materials.
| ANNUAL LENDING | |||||
| 2023-2024 | 2022-2023 | 2021-2022 | 2020-2021 | 2019-2020 | |
| Requested | 2,510 | 1,292 | 1,719 | 1,859 | 1,911 |
| Loaned | 1,598 | 747 | 859 | 916 | 830 |
| Fill Rate | 63.67% | 57.81% | 49.97% | 49.27% | 43.43% |
| LENDING DETAILS | |||||
| REQUESTS | TOTAL FILLED | FILLED PHYSICAL ITEMS | FILLED ARTICLES | TOTAL UNFILLED | |
| 2023-2024 | 2,510 | 1,598 | 816 | 782 | 912 |
| 2022-2023 | 1,292 | 747 | 496 | 251 | 545 |
| 2021-2022 | 1,719 | 859 | 786 | 73 | 813 |
| 2020-2021 | 1,859 | 916 | 810 | 106 | 944 |
| 2019-2020 | 1,911 | 830 | 718 | 112 | 1,081 |
Get It Now
| 2023-2024 | 2022-2023~ | |
| Total Requests | 227 | 177 |
| Requests by Faculty | 45 | 36 |
| Requests by Graduate Students | 182 | 141 |
| Average Turnaround Time | 32.4 minutes | 55.9 minutes |
| Average Cost Per Article | $39.13 | $41.02 |
| Total Cost for All Articles | $8,881.60 | $7,260.10 |
~Get It Now was re-initiated and available beginning November, 2022.
Notes
2023-2024: Rapido was our sole ILL system this year, and in October a new feature was enabled that allowed for more physical and digital lending with partners on the RapidILL network, which is the main reason for the increase in Lending. The Borrowing fill rate should be considered an increase technically as we no longer receive and fill requests for items that we already own or that are freely available on the internet; all filled requests are via other lenders for items we could not access without ILL. Overall increases in usage may be attributed to ease of use since Rapido is embedded in our research and discovery catalog, EagleSearch. Get It Now saw overall increases in usage, with even faster turnaround times and slightly lower per-article average cost.
2022-2023: Rapido is an InterLibrary Loan service that is embedded in EagleSearch, our online catalog and research tool. The library made the switch for financial, turnaround time, and user-friendliness reasons. Turnaround time for physical items has so far been one day slower, but many Rapido partners are geographically more distant than ILLiad partners were. Lending fill rate has improved because with Rapido, we are filling more article and chapter requests than were made in ILLiad; because more requests are filled digitally, and there are fewer partners to request physical items with Rapido, the physical items lending fell and article lending rose. Lending numbers include combined numbers from ILLiad and Rapido. Get It Now is almost 80% used by graduate students thus far.
2021-2022: Most ILL numbers held steady, though there was an increase in turnaround time for borrowed items (most likely due to reopening after COVID-19).
2020-2021: The library stopped using Firefly on June 30, 2021. ILL use by Tech students has been decreasing over the last few years, especially with undergraduates. The discrepancy between the total number of requests and the total users making requests has been investigated, but there were no details to explain the discrepancy.
2019-2020: Get It Now (GIN) was suspended in November due to ongoing budget reductions. ILLiad, the ILL system, stopped tracking total turnaround time for borrowing and now only tracks internal turnaround time. ILL services were suspended in March through June due to the pandemic.
2018-2019: The library started using a new InterLibrary Loan shuttle service called Firefly. With Firefly, library materials are picked up and dropped off at almost all libraries across the state.
2016-2017: ILL borrowing decreased this year in every month and across all user types. The fill rates and turnaround times have remained. Get It Now was available through our new library system beginning in July, but it could not effectively be limited to faculty and graduate students only. Due to its excessive use and cost, it was turned off in October.
2015-2016: ILL borrowing has increased while lending has been fairly steady, especially since our lending stats do not include February article statistics since there was a glitch in our system. Document scanning decreased, which is not surprising as our print journals get less and less use, and we transition to more online resources. Get It Now more than doubled this year with the most common users in engineering and education.
2014-2015: ILL has continued to increase, with borrowing requests almost tripling in the last two years. The turnaround times this year are a little skewed due to the terrible winter weather. The ILL department was closed for approximately two weeks throughout February and March, which definitely affected the turnaround time. Although document scanning went down slightly, it still seems to be much appreciated by our patrons. It most likely decreased because of a large print journal weeding project in Summer 2013. The use of Get It Now approximately doubled this year.
2013-2014: ILL has increased dramatically over the past two years. The document scanning is proving to be a valuable service has usage has drastically increased. This scanning happens when an ILL request is cancelled because we have the article in print. The print article is then scanned and emailed to the patron. Get It Now is an article on demand service that was released in September 2013. Graduate students and faculty can request an article and the library pays the per-article fee.
2012-2013: The library began using ILLiad for ILL in July 2012. This allows patrons to request
materials themselves without going through a library employee. This means they often
request materials we already have, so there are less "filled" requests via ILLiad.
This system can also affect other statistics for the 2012-2013 report compared to
previous years.
