Just-In-Time: A Case Study of Buying Instead of Borrowing at the University of North Texas Libraries, 2014–2017

ABSTRACT There is a trend among academic libraries to increase collaboration between interlibrary loan and collection development to improve patron access to materials and build library collections. Instead of borrowing returnable materials, interlibrary loan may initiate purchases that will become part of the library's collection. This can mean anything from an organizational change combining interlibrary loan with the acquisitions unit or creating new workflows to facilitate purchasing. At the University of North Texas Libraries, the Interlibrary Loan office is a unit of the Access Services Department. Buying instead of borrowing for the ILL unit began with a Demand Driven Acquisitions (DDA) program and has expanded with the establishment of the University of North Texas Libraries' access-based collection development policy. Interlibrary Loan provides “Just-In-Time” (JIT) access to materials not available through regular interlibrary loan sources and adds relevant materials to the Libraries' collections.