Electronic full-text articles as a substitute for traditional interlibrary borrowing

This study examines the potential for electronic full-text journal articles to reduce the level of traditional interlibrary borrowing requests typically placed at a large academic research library. With the growth in availability of electronic full-text journal articles and improvements in accessing and using this formats, library users have access to journal articles not physically owned by their institution's library. This fact may lead to a reduced demand for photocopied journal articles typically requested through interlibrary borrowing departments. This study begins by examining the recent literature on this topic, including several which have measured the impact that electronic full-text resources have had on their interlibrary borrowing levels. This is followed by a description of the methodology used in this particular study and a presentation of the results. The final section the potential for electronic full-text to reduce the amount of photocopy requests placed through interlibrary borrowing offices