History and trends of interlibrary loan in Hungary and in theHungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) Library

Abstract

It is an indispensable condition of writing a thesis or carrying out research work to have a thorough knowledge of the subject and to study the full range of scientific literature. It may occur, however, that not all the required materials can be found in the library where the reader is registered. As the access to documents is a fundamental right of all people, it has been a worldwide practice for centuries that libraries obtain documents from each other and thus provide their readers with documents sent by other libraries. The article summarizes the history of interlibrary loan, reviews the rules of the service and presents the operation of the interface of the National Document Supply System (ODR), as well as how the service is operated in different types of libraries. In addition, the experiences gained in the interlibrary loan activities of the HCSO Library are discussed in detail.