Just How Right Are the Customers? An Analysis of the Relative Performance of Patron-Initiated Interlibrary Loan Monograph Purchases

There has been a flurry of interest in programs for collection development through patron-initiated requests. However, some librarians have been concerned that such methods run the risk of producing idiosyncratic collections with poor usage and poor use value. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries have operated such a program through the Interlibrary Loan Department over a fiveyear period. The following study assesses the relative performance of the program’s interlibrary loan–acquired monographs in terms of prices paid per rates of annual circulation, relative use at the topical level, and annual rates of circulation.