Algunas dificultades de los servicios de obtención de documentos en las bibliotecas españolas de Ciencias de la Salud

Introduction The document delivery service (DDS) has become an essential for our centers, as a complement to the collection subscribed. Even though this is a highly valued and appreciated by the effectiveness and quickness largely thanks to the collaboration between libraries service, sometimes we find difficulties arising mainly due to the impossibility of obtaining articles unsubscribed journals or serials in our country. Objetives The main purpose of this study is to analyze the needs of the Health Sciences libraries and information centers in Spain obtaining articles and serial documents, which cannot currently be covered by the subscriptions of all the centers of the national network. In addition, the data obtained will allow us to study other aspects of the DDS, such as the type of manager used, to check if the library has or not the possibility to pay for the service of DDS or may only obtain documents through compensation or gratuity agreements and, of course, if a foreign service is used to obtain documents and which ones are used. Methodology A survey with 13 questions was performed, in order to obtain the relevant data to analyze and quantify the information. The survey was sent to a total of 368 centers identified on the Spanish collective catalogs: C17, GTBIB and Rebiun. All kinds of health libraries were included (virtual libraries, hospitals, universities, PRIs, etc.). Results The response rate was nearly 35%. 64% of respondents use Spanish libraries even though they charge for service; 31% only order to those libraries who have free or agreement clearing account. When the document is not found in Spain 23% of the libraries close the request, sometimes at the suggestion of the user. 57% of the libraries requests documents abroad, mostly to British Library or SUBITO. 16% of respondents try to get the item without any cost (through the author, colleagues or distribution lists). Of all the libraries surveyed, only three have a deposit account or buy the item directly to the editor. When identifying the journals that offer more difficulties in their location 325 different titles were found. The three most listed are Hand Clin Neurol, Methods Mol Biol and J Drugs Dermatol. Conclusions The main problems identified were: the dispersion of catalogues and their lack of updating; the difficulty of access to old holdings and to the newest articles because of the embargoes and the limited use of new business editorial models such as deposits or direct purchases. From the collected comments also follows that for many libraries in Spain the problem is not really the title location but the affordable cost for it. Finally, even if the majority uses one of these both systems, the GTBIB or the ILL, there are also centres with its own developed program or without specific software