Just How Right Are the Customers? An Analysis of the Relative Performance of Patron-Initiated Interlibrary Loan Monograph Purchases.

There has been a flurry of interest in programs for collection development through patron-initiated requests. However, some librarians have been concerned that such methods run the risk of producing idiosyncratic collections with poor usage and poor use value. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries have operated such a program through the Interlibrary Loan Department over a five-year period. The following study assesses the relative performance of the program's interlibrary loan-acquired monographs in terms of prices paid per rates of annual circulation, relative use at the topical level, and annual rates of circulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]