Interlibrary lending

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) has for many years operated a Voucher Scheme for use in Inter-Library lending transactions.

Usage of this scheme among libraries has been consistently decreasing over the years. With the introduction of the GST in June 2000, a number of libraries including The National Library ceased accepting ALIA vouchers as payment for interlibrary loans and document supply.

During 2011 ALIA conducted a survey of users of the Voucher scheme, both current and past to understand the importance of the ALIA Voucher Scheme today and in the future. One hundred and ninety six responses were received.
The output from that survey has been used to determine ALIA's position in relation to its active participation in Inter-Library lending as a provider of the Voucher system.

The response data indicated that the continuation of the Voucher Scheme was seen as of little consequence to the vast majority of ALIA Institutional members in the following ways:

• There were only 196 responses to the survey and a significant number of the respondents were not ALIA members. ALIA currently has about 800 Institutional members.
• Only 39 respondents used ALIA Vouchers to conduct loan transactions in any form in the previous year. The volume of voucher transactions was insignificant in terms of the total number identified. Four institutions accounted for 46% of the total value of ALIA vouchers transacted.
• 12 Institutions rated the ALIA Voucher system as important, 26 as somewhat important and 135 rated it as not important or not applicable. Of the 38 institutions who rated it as Important or Somewhat Important only 26 had used vouchers for transactions in the last year. All Institutions that rated the voucher system as important or somewhat important used other trading systems as well.
• Of the six transactions systems rated, the Voucher system was the second least important. Only the IFLA system was rated as of lower importance.
• From 1 January to 1 October 2011 ALIA has processed two transactions to issue new Vouchers.

The ALIA voucher scheme was labour intensive to manage and create accounting difficulties for the Association as it is impossible to track ownership of the Vouchers once they have been transacted. Overcoming these issues would require a rebuilding of the Voucher scheme and in an increasingly digital world would need to be a very different service that would effectively mirror existing services from other providers.

The Board of ALIA determined that as a result of this, the low usage rates of the ALIA Voucher scheme and the proliferation of alternative trading systems over the years that ALIA will cease providing a voucher trading system.

• ALIA stoped issuing new vouchers from 1 December 2011.
• ALIA voucher holders needed to redeem vouchers by 30 June 2012.

The ALIA Inter-Library lending voucher scheme has been a valuable service to members for many years. It has however been the subject of diminishing value to members and increasing difficulty for the Association for some time as well and the Board feels that this is the appropriate time for the scheme to be closed down.

ALIA will continue to play a broad role in the Inter-Library environment by ensuring that its members views are taken into account in any future revisions of the Resource sharing code.

ALIA National Office staff will work with any current members who seek assistance in migrating from the voucher scheme to alternative systems. Any enquiries can be directed to Rob Miller, the Chief Operating Officer of ALIA on 02 6215 8220 or enquiry@alia.com.au.