THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN INTERLENDING SCHEME: SOME RESULTS OF A COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY

Abstract

A comprehensive survey of the Southern African Interlending Scheme was undertaken from January 1985 to February 1986. After a brief overview of the scheme and the survey, estimates of the total volume of requests, broken down by countries and types of library, are presented, together with findings relating to fill rates, turnaround times, and the distribution of the interlending volume among member libraries. It was found that interlending traffic was of the order of 300,000 requests in 1985, with a fill rate of 80% and a median turnaround time of 10 days for first requests. University libraries and those in the Pretoria—Witwatersrand—Vereeniging region dominate the traffic, and the concentration of demand on a small number of libraries is cause for concern.