Search

Purpose – This paper aims to describe the state of the art of the Italian Archivio Licenze Periodici Elettronici (ALPE) project which aims to improve the understanding of the issues raised by licence agreements of electronic resources in the Inter-Library Loan Service and to support librarians in the implementation of the right policies. Design/methodology/approach – ALPE – (E-Journals Licenses Archive) is a national archive of interlibrary loan (ILL) clauses, extracted from standard and negotiated licences, to manage, to publicly share and to check the permitted uses of e-resources for ILL and document delivery. Findings – The ALPE archive facilitates public and free access to a remarkable amount of information and data about ILL conditions granted by the most important commercial and academic publishers, and responds to the practical problems of managing and understanding ILL clauses in e-licences. Originality/value – The solutions adopted by ALPE effectively solve many of the problems reported in the literature. These should help ILL librarians in dealing with the problems associated with ILL and licensing.

PurposeThis paper presents the most recent progress and implementation of the Network Inter‐Library Document Exchange (NILDE) system, a web based document delivery (DD) software for libraries and end‐users. NILDE allows libraries to manage the entire workflow of DD activities, both borrowing and lending, through the provision of synthetic and analytical statistics, DD performance indicators such as “fill‐rate” and “turn‐around time”, and support for secure electronic delivery. New technologies, referred to as Web 2.0, have been incorporated into NILDE, making it an even more user‐oriented and friendly tool for document delivery and scholar work.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents the key factors that have made NILDE a successful tool and a “de facto” standard for document delivery among Italian libraries: the policies, i.e. the rules the community has imposed on itself, and the processes, i.e. the procedures through which the libraries provide DD services using NILDE.FindingsThe rise in NILDE users has allowed the building of a cooperative network to promote resource sharing based on a degree of standard quality of service and fair behaviour. It was found how, by adhering to these principles, libraries start up a virtuous cycle within the NILDE network, increasing its own value.Originality/valueThe paper will be of interest to librarians wanting to start a successful cooperative network and all those with an interest in developments in resource sharing in Italy.