I was surprised to see the words: ILL has more warm bodies and budget lines devoted to it than ever before in this commentary.  I'm not seeing this the way you are unless you're looking at the costs of doing ILL.  Our director had me run the figures and we're not an inexpensive service. I can see why the number-crunchers in the public library sector are closing down the service in public libraries, regions, and states.  Many public libraries in my state have started charging customers and other libraries for the service.  Our library started charging libraries who charge us asking for payment via IFM to help defray our costs of doing business. Over this time period the costs for postage, courier, UPS, and supplies has gone up.Looking at it just purely from the point of view of costs, ILL is a money eater. 

Looking at it from the point of value, it's  viewed as a necessity for many of our customers in the public library area.  A speaker at a resource sharing conference in my state a few years/pre-recession described ILL as a Cinderella service- overworked, underappreciated, but with high value. With publishers reducing print runs -and reprint runs- of books and the weeding of collections to make room for technology, libraries rely on one another to meet the needs of customers who want to read no-longer-in-print fiction and non-fiction, who need articles from yet to be digitized and long defunct periodicals, and who are doing genealogical, historical, and personal research.  Much of what our customers want is not online and is not likely to be online- especially free online. In these times, free is valued. And it's getting used. Once upon a time, I'd be guessing at our user base.  Since our ILL management software requires customers to register, we've had well over 10,000 users of our service in the past five years at this public library -a huge number considering that the ILL service is a not a widely known one.  Yet- this unit saw a reduction nearly 65% of the staffing devoted to ILL processing during the same time period. 

The future of ILL will depend upon the value the-fiscal-powers-that-be place upon it-- really-as it always has.

Great commentary! 

I can't pretend to predict the future for any library but ours (even then I am guessing) and business in ILL is strong and growing in our world.  In part that's because our ILL function is relatively new at only 4 years old, and in part because the researchers and scientists we serve are not college freshmen. 

True, we are all (even us librarian types) become accustomed to and expecting more instant gratification.  Because budgets are down we rely heavily on  ILL because not only are we not able to collect, catalog and circulate all material within our sector (transportation) we would never want to.  Total cost of ownership would be sky high and like everyone, we are tight for space.

In talking about ILL and in thinking about your experiences, remember there are a lot of different kinds of libraries out there, and your patrons and your experiences are your world, not the entire world.

That much said, you may be right...

In my opinion ILL will be around for a little longer because a lot of public libraries are shifting their focus to popular materials to keep the general public happy and engaged.  ILL will be the option if you want to read or view something outside of the mainstream.  Hopefully all of those specialty libraries will stay funded to help keep us around.

Thanks for getting us thinking and talking Kelly.  Another element of the now and future ILL is the convergence between ILL and acquisitions.  ILLiad even has add-ons designed for book purchase options, adding to our ILL acquisitions repertoire. 

I don't think interlibrary loan will go down.  People can now identify books through Google books and other resources that didn't exist before.  Many assignments involve advanced research that only interlibrary loan can provide.  Interlibrary loan is the one thing that will survive the coming library cuts as people realize that we can't last without sharing.

Ironically, the glut of information will only make interlibrary loan that much more useful, as people are able to find the exact thing they need (that is not available online!!)

We have just started providing scanned articles through interlibrary loan. We used to use snail mail only.

Although ILL requests at my institution have gone down some, I don't see it going away for us, especially for our faculty who are pursuing advanced degrees, reading for pleasure outside our collection, reviewing books before purchasing, or requesting a print edition over the electronic version.  Students often want articles from professional journals that are not completely full-text in the databases, or need an art book we don't own, or want to read genre fiction that was recommended by a friend.

I am still amazed, though, by the number of libraries who continue to use snail mail to deliver photocopies. We are a small operation, but we email pdfs or fax articles when the contact information is provided, and we do it for FREE.  ILL is so much more useful when electronic delivery is a way of life. 

Maybe we can extend ILLs future about 15 more minutes!