Five Key Challenges Facing Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery

The Library of Congress serves as a primary source for material published in the United States and secondarily for items published outside the US and not available from the country of origin. This paper describes major challenges in fulfilling international interlibrary loan requests, such as customer service, digital formats, copyright restrictions, and workforce development. It further examines knowledge sharing, the need to support international librarians and provides analysis of interlibrary loan services in the twentieth century.