From Courtesy Letters to Digital Copies: Interlibrary Loan — Experiences of the University Llibrary “Svetozar Marković” in Belgrade

Abstract

This paper presents the development and transformation of interlibrary loan services at the University Library “Svetozar Marković” in Belgrade, from their earliest beginnings to the present-day practice, which is substantially transformed. Interlibrary loan is examined as a specific form of scholarly documents exchange — one of several modalities for the organization of information and documents that gained considerable momentum in the immediate aftermath of World War II, when science was assigned a prominent and autonomous role in society. By virtue of the nature of the materials it encompasses, this activity has been uniquely positioned to bear witness to a wide range of developments in the communication field of science, spanning virtually all of its disciplines. The paper identifies and describes the successive stages of development and transformation of this service, as well as the corresponding shifts in scholarly communication.

Keywords: interlibrary loan, scientific documents supply, structures of scholarly documents, University Library “Svetozar Marković”.