Testing Orr's document delivery test on biomedical journals in South Africa.

This paper describes the use of a document delivery test (DDT) to measure the availability of biomedical research journals in South African health sciences libraries. The methodology employed was developed twenty years ago by a team of researchers from the Institute for the Advancement of Medical Communication under the direction of R. H. Orr. The testing of the methodology was in itself an objective of the present research. A citation pool consisting of 307 items was constructed from references to journal articles in papers published in 1989 by South African biomedical researchers. The availability of each article was determined at each of seven medical library sites; the performance was measured and presented as an arithmetical value or document delivery capability index (CI). The results of the tests show a high level of availability, ranging from CI = 81.68 to CI = 92.97 for the journals sampled. The DDT methodology was found to be practical, applicable to such studies, and flexible. Its use is recommended for similar studies.

The availability of research journals in South African academic medical libraries.

Biomedical researchers depend on the journals of science as a primary source of information. The spiralling cost of journals threatens the ability of libraries to provide their users' information needs. In this study the availability of a representative sample of journals used by South African biomedical researchers was determined at each of the seven medical faculty libraries. The application of a standardised document delivery test is described and the results are interpreted in terms of: (i) the capability index, which includes material obtainable through inter-library loans; and (ii) an availability index, or measure of the probability that a user will find an item without delay in his/her own library. The current status of availability of biomedical journals was found to be high at all the libraries; indeed, the scores compare favourably with results obtained at academic libraries overseas. There is, however, real concern that the financial crisis in tertiary education will cause the situation to deteriorate. Repetition of this test is recommended to monitor the (probably declining) level of journal availability. The information would support efforts to rationalise and subsequently strengthen academic medical libraries' collective holdings as a strategic national resource.