ILL is Our Professional Work?

Professional librarians must have extra time and energy. Changes in the world at large have be accompanied by charges in the requirements of users. To satisfy their needs, we have to listen to what they say, learn about new ideas and techniques, and provide knowledge to our clients. Requests for document delivery have been increasing greatly. The number of Interlibrary Loan services in 1995 was 1.5 times greater than in 1990. We librarians are suffering because of this, and cannot perform other library services sufficiently. Faced with this difficulty, our library has started to contract out Interlibrary Loan work. We have contracted out all of the supply work and almost of the request work, although problems are still solved by librarians. Our library has saved time and energy to support users in these ways.