The University of California Libraries: A Plan for Development (1977)

VI. Delivery and Use 93
2) That internal handling procedures within each library
continue to be studied with a view toward expediting them as much as
possible;
3) That direct borrowing by faculty and students continue
to be encouraged;
4) That materials be transported between campuses (and
other locations, such as the regional facilities discussed in
Chapter X) via jitney buses;
5) That proxy borrowing services be provided in connection
with all jitney buses;
6) That the use of "expediters" at the larger campuses be
expanded as necessary to achieve same-day return of loan requests.
With these steps, it should be possible to deliver a high percentage
of all materials needed regionally within 48 hours.
Systemwide and State. Materials likely to be needed within one
week should be available for delivery and use within the UC system.
Such materials should also be available within this time frame to
libraries of the California State University and Colleges and other
institutions of higher education in the state, to the extent this
does not seriously handicap the University's ability to make the
materials available to its primary clientele.
To a large extent, the problems associated with meeting this
goal are the same as those discussed in the previous section, except
that the delays are longer because of the greater distances involved.
The Thompson study found that an inter-campus loan between the
Southern campuses and Berkeley averaged 17.3 days. 12 When non-UC
institutions are involved, it takes even longer; for example, Martell
found that the average time for loans between Sacramento and Berkeley
was 20.7 days, even though both these institutions are in the
Northern region. 13 As Martell comments, this is approximately the
12 Thompson, p. 7.
13 Charles R. Martell, Jr., Interlibrary Loan Turnaround Time: A Study
of Performance us Characteristics of the University of California,
Berkeley, Interlibrary Loan Lending Operation, Institute of Library
Research, Berkeley, 1975, p. 8.