The vendor refers back to UConn's Interlibrary Loan any requests for documents that are held in the University Libraries' own collection. Although a number of other academic institutions are using a similar service, most receive the documents through a library or via fax. UConn is one of just a handful that also offers document delivery to users at their own workstations. Whether or not it will in the future be offered to the entire of University community will depend on the outcome of the pilot. Statistics gathered by the library show that nearly 90 percent of requests have been delivered within three days.
Some participants have other concerns, however.
Margaret Sekellick, associate professor in residence in molecular and cell biology, says although the service is extremely helpful the turnround time is unpredictable and the quality of the images in some documents is poor. Orth says image resolution is a well known problem in the field and UConn is working with the vendor to address issues of quality and color. For some participants, there are other, less tangible issues at stake. There's none of the classical browsing of tables of contents or other articles that you have with traditional searches. Still, delivering documents direct to the user appears to be the wave of the future, if academic libraries are to maintain and increase access to a wide range of publications at a time of unprecedented economic pressures.