Reflecting on Collection Development Implications from the Impact of COVID-19 on Interlibrary Loan in Health Sciences Libraries

Objectives: COVID-19 has presented unparalleled challenges for information exchange globally, including a strain on interlibrary loan (ILL). This research focused on differences in DOCLINE interlibrary loan borrowing and lending from 15 academic, hospital and association health sciences libraries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We describe preliminary findings on differences in fill rates, characteristics of journals, including publication year and language, and journal price.


Methods: Aggregate DOCLINE filled and unfilled request data from 15 health sciences libraries was supplied for the stage of the pandemic from March to August 2020 and the same time period in 2019. We compared these time periods to each other and to system-wide fill rates for the same time periods. Data associated with journal prices was provided by EBSCO, and language data from the National Library of Medicine journal database were integrated into the data set. We cleaned and normalized data using OpenRefine, calculated descriptive statistics and odds ratios, and conducted 2-proportion z-tests of differences before and during COVID-19.

Results: In our sample of 14,891 requests, the odds of having an unfilled request were 2.7 times higher in 2020 than 2019 (OR=2.69, 95% CI=2.37-3.06, p < .0001). The pandemic did not change the amount of non-English language content requested. However, there was a significantly higher proportion of unfilled requests for non-English language content (16.3% vs. 32.7%, p < .00001). While there was no difference in 2019, in 2020 there was a statistically significant difference between the proportion of older articles (p < .00001) with a higher proportion of older articles in 2020.

Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the fulfillment of ILL requests from March-August 2020. The numbers of unfilled requests emphasize the need for journals to be available electronically and the potential for the digitization of older materials to improve access. Although our findings from this sample of HSLs call attention to a focused subset of content, libraries of all types could consider how their own collection development strategies incorporate the purchase of backfiles to increase the accessibility of older articles. Future research may focus on the availability, utility, and expense of the materials more likely unfilled in order to further inform collection development practices.