Trends in the use of DOCLINE and the OCLC ILL subsystem 1986-1992

An examination of interlibrary loan statistics from 1986 through 1992 at the Health Sciences Library (HSL), State University of New York at Buffalo, revealed that the numbers of requests received via DOCLINE increased steadily over this period. Meanwhile, the numbers of requests received via OCLC rose from 1986 to 1989 but then declined steadily from 1989 to 1992. To understand and interpret these trends, a survey of various libraries that obtain material from HSL was conducted to collect data on their use of DOCLINE and OCLC. Analysis of the data confirmed that the use of DOCLINE was on the increase, especially in health sciences libraries, and that in some of these libraries requests for documents via OCLC were on the decline. The ratio of requests via DOCLINE versus OCLC ranged from 2:1 to 5:1. In the non-health sciences libraries that request from HSL, use of DOCLINE is minimal compared to that of OCLC.