Libraries face licensing, routing and citation headaches as interlibrary loan shifts online
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Summary
At a National Library of Medicine Region 3 HealthBytes webinar, Jennifer Lloyd of LSU HSC libraries outlined how licensing terms, routing outages and publisher embargoes are constraining interlibrary loan (ILL) and complicating access for researchers and hospitals.
Jennifer Lloyd, associate director for the LSU HSC libraries in New Orleans, told a National Library of Medicine Region 3 HealthBytes webinar that interlibrary loan — borrowing and lending materials between libraries — is facing a wave of legal and operational changes that affect how quickly and widely items can be shared.
Lloyd said modern ILL relies on a mix of routing systems and management platforms, naming DOCLINE, OCLC and Rapido along with ILLiad, Tipasa and RapidILL as common tools. "ILL, just to remind you, is borrowing and lending materials from other libraries," she said, stressing that different systems and licenses change what a library can lend and to whom.
Why it matters: changes in publisher agreements and routing access can slow or block requests for essential research articles, affecting clinical care, teaching and scholarship. Lloyd gave concrete examples: her library owned roughly 1,300 print journals in 2005 but by 2021 held about 14 print journals and nearly 7,000 in-scope online titles, and it relies on a state consortium for additional access.
Lloyd highlighted three practical problems libraries face. First, licensing terms increasingly can prohibit interlibrary loan even when internal document delivery is allowed; geographic restrictions may block lending outside the United States. Second, routing and indexing problems — Lloyd cited DOCLINE non-receipts and scheduling failures during a government shutdown — have left requests in limbo, requiring borrowers to cancel and resubmit. Third, publishers are experimenting with embargoes and exclusivity: Lloyd pointed to American Journal of Public Health’s recent model changes and to Nature Aging’s limited indexing and HTML-only availability for recent issues.
She also warned about phantom citation issues and research integrity. Citing a Retraction Watch item, Lloyd said librarians are seeing fake or preposterous references in some papers that can lead to retractions and waste staff time: "They're a huge waste of our time," she said.
Lloyd recommended practical steps: maintain accurate holdings in OCLC and DOCLINE, keep communication open with partner libraries, and monitor license terms before lending. On retractions and versions of record, she said she would try to inform borrowers if she notices an article has been retracted or corrected, because publishers and PubMed often watermark or update records.
The session offered pointers to collaborative efforts addressing ebook lending and technical solutions (Research Training Institute posters and a Boston Library Consortium digital lenders form were mentioned). Lloyd closed by encouraging libraries to share knowledge through professional groups and to use available toolkits, including resources from the American Library Association.
The presentation did not record any formal decisions; Lloyd offered her email for follow-up and suggested the Network of the National Library of Medicine could disseminate further guidance.
