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This article details the challenges faced by today's UK-based inter-lending services in terms of fiscal pressures, technological change and changing patron expectations. It examines how recent refurbishment at the British Library has led to an increase in community inter-lending, against a background of a general reduction of the reliance on inter-library loan services. It also considers the perception of the value of inter-lending services by senior management, alongside the impact that online availability of materials has had. It then considers the issues around rights management and licence restrictions for inter-lending imposed by many publishers and suppliers. Finally, it considers the steps for change that inter-lending services need to embrace to meet these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a day in the life of Phil Adams, Senior Assistant Librarian at De Montfort University in Great Britain. He comments on choosing a discovery tool and integrating it into the larger library infrastructure and mentions looking into different digital preservation avenues that would provide library users with access to digital content. He talks about curating the electronic newsletter The Digitalpreservation Daily at http://paper.li which presents news on digital preservation.