Measuring and Sustaining the Impact of Less Commonly Taught Language Collections in a Research Library

Joe Lenkart is International Reference Librarian, Thomas H. Teper is Associate University Librarian for Collections and Technical Services, Mara Thacker is South Asian Studies Librarian, and Steven W. Witt is Head of the International and Area Studies Library in the Main Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], swwitt@ illinois.edu. The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of Cherié Weible and Esra Coskun in the preparation of this manuscript. © 2015 Joe Lenkart, Thomas H. Teper, Mara Thacker, and Steven W. Witt, Attribution-NonCommercial (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) CC BY-NC. To evaluate the current state of resource sharing and cooperative collection development, this paper examines the relationship between less commonly taught language collections (LCTL) and ILL services. The study examined multiple years of the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign’s resource-sharing data. This paper provides a historical narrative for the multilingual collections, collection development strategies, reference services, and outreach initiatives that reinforce and strengthen scholarly communication and resource sharing among academic libraries. The paper concludes by examining the feasibility of aggregating, or concentrating, collections of difficult-to-acquire, low-use materials at institutions that can provide service at a regional and/or national level.