Rethinking the Subscription Paradigm for Journals: Using Interlibrary Loan in Collection Development for Serials

Many librarians evaluate local Interlibrary Loan (ILL) statistics as part of collection development decisions concerning new subscriptions. In this study, the authors examine whether the number of ILL article requests over one academic year can predict the use of those same journal titles once they are added as library resources. An additional study, examining the sources from which patrons made ILL requests, shows that database search results dominate. These results call into question the need for libraries to subscribe to individual journal titles rather than providing access to a broad array of articles.