Nurses are the largest group of health professionals [1]. Practicing nurses and distance-learning nursing students need access to primary literature. Without direct access to large nursing collections, they must rely on Loansome Doc or interlibrary loan services from hospitals, local public libraries, and colleges. Hospital libraries participate more often in DOCLINE than OCLC. Large nursing collections tend to be in libraries affiliated with undergraduate and graduate nursing programs. Most of these are not affiliated with medical schools and tend to be OCLC rather than DOCLINE participants.
OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study was to analyze the availability of key nursing journals through the OCLC and DOCLINE interlibrary loan systems. The sample was a complete census of records for these journals in the two systems in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico in June of 1998.
METHODS
The targeted journal titles were those in the 1998 edition of “Key Nursing Journals: Characteristics and Database Coverage,” by Allen [2]. Titles qualified for Allen's list if they were on the current Brandon/Hill nursing list, the CINAHL core list, and the RNdex Top 100; were selected for inclusion in Index Medicus (or other major databases); or appeared in the most recent Swanson and McCloskey list of publishing opportunities for nurses [3]. Titles that had ceased publication by June of 1998 were not included.
At the time, SERHOLD records for DOCLINE lending were derived from the South Central Academic Medical Libraries (SCAMeL) consortium's Union List of Serials. The SCAMeL list included holdings for non-SCAMeL DOCLINE participants, such as hospital and corporate libraries, in the five states.
The author used OCLC FirstSearch to retrieve records of all target titles available for interlibrary loan in the five states as listed in OCLC or the SCAMeL Union List of Serials. A three-file relational database was created from the results of these searches. The journal file contained bibliographic records of the 165 target titles that were found. The libraries file contained 284 records of all libraries offering at least one target title. The lending file contained 8,089 records of journal-title-to-library matches.
RESULTS
There was not a significant difference between the number of titles available through the two systems. Of the 165 nursing titles, 153 were available in the five-state region. Twelve titles were not available through either system. Four titles were available through OCLC but not DOCLINE. One title was available through DOCLINE but not OCLC. Seven titles were offered by only one or two libraries.
There was a difference in the breadth of coverage in the two systems. Nursing titles were available through 161 exclusively OCLC lending libraries and 93 exclusively DOCLINE libraries. Thirty libraries offered nursing titles through both systems. Of the latter, it was interesting to note that the number of titles offered were often different in the two systems; some libraries offered dozens more titles in one system than the other. It is important to note that this study was not a survey of library holdings, but of titles the participating libraries had chosen to list as available for interlibrary loan in the two systems.
There were 5,500 title-library lending matches in OCLC, 3,909 title-library lending matches in DOCLINE, and 1,325 title-library lending matches included in both. Of libraries offering at least fifty nursing titles through interlibrary loan, forty-four were OCLC participants, and nineteen were DOCLINE participants. There were 165 OCLC libraries and 114 DOCLINE libraries lending two or more nursing journal titles.
CONCLUSIONS
While there is not a significant difference in the number of nursing titles available, there are more OCLC libraries offering nursing titles than DOCLINE. There are many differences between the two interlibrary loan systems, including cost, automatic routing, and records level. DOCLINE, primarily a journal copy interlibrary loan system, is free to participants. Journal holdings statements in the system are specific to the volume level, which increases the likelihood of a match for a specific issue. SERHOLD, the database that supports DOCLINE, does not include any monographic holdings information. OCLC, on the other hand, provides journal copy interlibrary loan as one of a larger suite of bibliographic, cataloging, and interlibrary loan services for which member libraries pay. OCLC does not offer automatic routing.
Libraries that participate in only one system may be paying commercial document delivery services (e.g., CINAHL) for articles that may be available less expensively from neighboring libraries that do not participate in the same system. Links between the two systems could benefit everyone.
Footnotes
*This research was supported by a grant from The South Central Academic Medical Libraries (SCAMeL) consortium.
†Based on a presentation at the Annual Meeting of the South Central Chapter (SCC) of the Medical Library Association, Norman, Oklahoma, October 24, 1999; the presentation won the 1999 SCC Research Award.
REFERENCES
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