The Sharing Economy? It’s What We Do!

Books bagged and ready to be returned 
to other I-Share libraries at the end of a Knox term.

Sharing materials between libraries is a core part of most libraries’ missions, and Knox College’s library is no different. Staff in Seymour Library work diligently every day to bring materials to Knox College constituents. Check out these stats:
For the academic period from July 2014 through June 2015, Knox patrons

• borrowed just over 7400 books or films, with 94% of those materials arriving from other I-Share Libraries in Illinois in an average of 3.23 days; and 
• obtained just over 2000 articles via our interlibrary loan services, with 92% of those articles received in an average of 13 hours.

I-Share, our core interlibrary borrowing service for books, facilitates borrowing among 84 Illinois academic libraries. I-Share is a membership organization funded in part by the State of Illinois. In 2014 the Knox College Library joined the RapidILL resource sharing system, which has facilitated rapid turnaround time for acquiring articles in digital formats.

Knox Library staff are continuously busy lending materials to other libraries as well, even during the summer and other academic break periods. In the fiscal year ending in June 2015 our library loaned 4302 books (3468 to other I-Share patrons) and sent out 2179 articles.