Researchers are able to make their research results more accessible, and can find out more quickly and more easily about the research of others and obtain the documents which describe that research. Librarians can supplement their holdings, use document delivery to assist the holdings rationalisation process, provide better services, give themselves an extra role, and even make money. Universities can provide improved services at lower costs. Before we can present document delivery as the solution to the problems which face us, as the great alternative to collection development, we need to be clearer about the issues involved. Librarians find it very difficult to develop a policy which achieves the right balance between access and holdings against an apparently ever more difficult financial background.
Large collections are still too often the crude measure of effectiveness.
In the UK for example, many publications describing universities list the size of the library's collection as the only measure of its quality. There is strong pressure from academic staff for the maintenance of large collections, but this often seems to be for reasons of prestige rather than quality of service. All too often, universities have little knowledge of the use of their collections, particularly of their journals. There is little evidence that a larger collection on its own produces better research. Of course, many of the world's greatest universities have great research strengths and magnificent collections, but there is little scientific correlation, for example, between the excellence of smaller institutions of a similar size, and their relative collection sizes.