Access to Research Initiative - free online articles via UK public libraries

[Andreas Johansson]

Here, interlibrary is free within the county, and last I did one from farther afield it cost something on the order of £1. Call it one of the upsides of social democracy.

To be honest, I'd rather I paid for my loans than they cut more libraries or bought less books.  I used to use libraries a lot when younger but these days they are pretty much confined to the popular end - pop history, TV tie ins.  Again, I'd rather they prioritised and kept people reading and learning than worry about me.

Not sure if I follow here, but I suspect they confine to the popular end precisely to keep people reading and learning. They likely figure that those who'd appreciate the more specialist stuff will keep reading anyway - it's with the more marginal readers they think they can make a difference.

(Note also that Sweden hasn't gone through anything like Britain's austerity programme since the 1990s, so trade-offs between interlibrary and other library services are less acute.)

[Sharur]

Just following-up on the inter-library loan charge comments, the prices for me are 50p if in-county (but as my local library's the county one, it's extremely unlikely if they don't have something I'm interested in that anywhere else will) or £5 from elsewhere. The actual cost the library service has to pay to bring in a book from outside (British Library, usually) is - or was when I last ordered something in 2013 - £12 plus postage, so while the cost isn't cheap any more, we're all getting at least something of a subsidy.

The ordering costs here went up very steeply during one of the many rounds of pre-austerity local authority funding cuts in the early 2000s, but thankfully they haven't increased for seven or eight years now. Of course, the increase was so large (the "elsewhere" charge had risen from £1 to £2.50 in the previous year or two at the time, from memory), the number of inter-library loan requests dropped almost to zero in the years after it was introduced...

[Erpingham]

I've had a reply from my library contacts.  They are on the waiting list to be connected to this scheme but are awaiting more details.  Which may offer hope for some who couldn't identify a library in 100 miles in the scheme - it may be free but it still takes time for libraries to get connected.

[Erpingham]

Our library's digital development manager has been in touch to say we now have the scheme available.  The quick turnround on this shows it is worth checking on whether your library has an application in progress, rather than just rely on the website list.

[Patrick Waterson]

Not bad - definitely worth a try.

[Erpingham]

Initial look has shown that ,although I have to be in a library to access articles, I can access the index from my own computer.  There doesn't seem to be a simple list of what's available - the index is organised to help you find specific publications, so you need to try some of your favourites out.  Another way of looking at it is the subject index, which will search for a word in the article title.  This is quick and it will also suggest alternative searches with related key words.  I found a number of interesting articles and periodicals that way.