Update on Document Supply Survey

Thanks to all who responded to the Document Supply survey. We had a very pleasing response of approximately 10% of our members. The full report will be available in January.

Most people are satisfied with the existing service but were not aware of the significant costs of acquiring material from the British Library. Although respondents are concerned about the mechanism for paying, approximately 34% said they would be willing to pay if there was no charge for material supplied from within the Queen’s or HSC Library network. From our records it would appear that the majority of requests can be fulfilled internally. Some articles available online are free and in those cases you can print them out or download them without any charge. Other online articles are available to you because the library has paid a subscription and you are recognised as a member of our library. Again you can print or download these for no charge. We are only talking about charging users for material that we have to obtain from other libraries at the cost mentioned in the survey.

The next stage is to look at implementing a new system of charging and discussing this with the Trusts and other organisations. We will keep you informed of developments.