Docline Sharing Analysis – Are You Popular for ILL?

This article examines resource sharing, specifically through the DOCLINE interlibrary loan (ILL) network, at the Saint Mary’s Medical Center (SMMC) Dr E.H. Munro Library, located in Grand Junction, CO. SMMC serves rural Mesa County, population 151,616. It has approximately 2000 staff and 300 physicians and is part of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System. The Dr E.H. Munro Library has one .6 FTE Librarian and one .5 FTE Library Technician. The print journal collection increased from approximately 440 titles in 2005 to 600 titles in 2018. Many print journal additions are either new titles or older extensions of existing titles. The majority of the new titles added were donations from local clinicians and acquisitions from BackMed listserv. Its DOCLINE loan/borrow ratio was about 1.5 in 2005, but in recent years the ratio increased to 3.2. The library participates in the reciprocal borrowing groups of Colorado Council of Medical Librarians (CCML) and FreeShare (FS) within DOCLINE plus a reciprocal relationship with an academic medical library, also through DOCLINE. The majority of its lending is due to its FreeShare status. The author’s initial hypothesis was that SMMC’s DOCLINE net lender status is due to acquiring primarily older print journals. To better understand this, a detailed study of the 2018 DOCLINE loans and borrows was done.