Olivia Given Castello, social science librarian, Temple University
It was all about getting users connected with digital material. Library staff worked together to develop a simple new service—they added a “Get Help Finding a Digital Copy” button
to their library catalog. When searching for resources in the library phone number library catalog,
users can click on the button to request assistance finding a physical item in digital form,
which creates a help ticket for library staff to field.
Within the first week of the button launch in April 2020,
there were about 350 requests. Since then, the requests have surpassed 9,000.
“Our popular service helps users get access
To resources they need quickly without economic hardship, and without having to travel to campus,” said Olivia Given Castello,
a social science librarian and unit head in Temple Libraries’ Learning & Research Services department, who helped create the new service.
Temple relies on a variety of sources for the internet archive notes its digital requests—including the Internet Archive. “It’s a valuable resource through which we help Temple library users find digital copies of inaccessible or inconveniently accessible items in our physical collection,” Given Castello said of the Internet Archive’s ebooks available through controlled digital lending (CDL).
Charles Library at Temple University
For a large research university, Temple’s library collections’ budget is modest, and it has been challenging to keep up with the rapidly rising costs of journals and monographs given the static library budget in recent years. Additionally, there are ebooks that the libraries are unable to provide. Commercial publishers want to sault data maximize profits gained from ebook sales to individual students, so unlike with print books, there are many ebook titles they refuse to sell to libraries, or refuse to sell with adequate user licensing. Based on past requests, we estimate that just under 20% of the digital items that Temple finds through its new service is in the Internet Archive collection, said Given Castello.
