Abstract
A library cannot and should not purchase every book ever published. It should however nurture a collection development policy guided by the needs of the patrons and environment in which it operates. Interlibrary loan offers patrons an affordable, easy and quick way to meet the most pressing needs where hiatuses in the collection are concerned. However, international loan requests for books can be costly and have a high delivery runtime with only a short lending period. Purchasing these titles rather than requesting them can turn out to be more cost- and time effective. In addition, adding requested titles to the collection is a sure way of developing the collection based on actual needs. The University of Antwerp Library implemented a Purchase on Demand pilot in 2018. This paper presents our findings after four years of POD-ILL as an additional acquisition model and partial alternative to international ILL. We provide a short introduction on the concept of POD-ILL and take a closer look at the collection purchased through POD-ILL. As expected, most purchases were made for the faculties of Law and Social Sciences and the departments of History and Literature. As an alternative to international ILL, the main benefit is the extended loan due to an owned versus lent copy. Our yearly budget was more than sufficient to cover the cost, which has provided some leeway in the purchase strategy and parameters. We have recently opted for inclusion of study books that are in high demand.