Analysis and Assessment of the 'Get it Now' Service, Five Years after Implementation - is it Fulfilling its Purpose Sustainably?

Abstract

The 'Get it Now' service, from the Copyright Clearance Center, is a rapid document delivery program for journal articles which we implemented in 2014. With five years of data, our analysis addressed questions including: patterns and changes in usage, cost, and cost per use over time; average delivery period; frequency of repeat users – including any with an excessive number of requests; how usage is divided by publisher and by discipline based on classifying journal titles. Our analysis of the service’s use is informing our overall assessment of the service, addressing in particular growth of the service and sustainability over time. The assessment also explores whether the service’s original mission of providing expedient access to particular articles for faculty and graduate students is being fulfilled, or if actual use indicates movement away from this purpose. Is 'Get It Now' fulfilling a role as critical service for campus researchers? Finally, a special look at the service during the recent public health crisis and remote instruction and research period -- when other methods of access to material not held locally, such as interlibrary loan, were unavailable -- will be discussed.