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The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the relationship between ILL/document supply and journal subscriptions and to assess recent trends in the ILL service.

This survey is based on data from the ILL service conducted over the five‐year period 2005‐2009 through the Italian Network for Inter‐Library Document Exchange (NILDE).

This paper bears out important previous findings that ILL is not used as a surrogate for journal subscriptions. This is supported by the analysis of a broad number of titles and over a wide time‐range. On the contrary, analysis of data transactions, particularly of the most requested journals, can bring about positive effects on new title acquisitions and negotiations with publishers. This paper also shows, at least for Italy, an overall growth and vitality of ILL, in spite of the widespread availability of e‐journals acquired through consortia purchasing.

The paper presents an insight into the relationship between ILL and journal subscriptions in Italy, a country where few studies have been carried out, and none at all for such a large number of libraries and transactions.

The purpose of this paper is to present new concepts and features introduced in NILDE 4.0, an online ILL and document supply request system designed for and used by more than 700 Italian libraries and research institutions.

The authors use a case study approach based on their professional experience at the NILDE Administrator library, the CNR Research Area Library of Bologna.

New concepts and features include, among others, a multilingual user interface, a Z39.50 link to national catalogues and union catalogues, a ranking algorithm to assist libraries in balancing their ILL borrowing and lending volumes with partner libraries, a single sign-on user authentication and authorisation system, and a bibliographic citation management system. Future development plans include the ability to create library groups; although this functionality is already built into the new system architecture, it has not yet been implemented by the community.

The authors have published previously on earlier versions of the NILDE software; this paper presents an overview of the recently released version 4.0.

This paper aims to describe the state of the art of the Italian Archivio Licenze Periodici Elettronici (ALPE) project which aims to improve the understanding of the issues raised by licence agreements of electronic resources in the Inter-Library Loan Service and to support librarians in the implementation of the right policies.

ALPE – (E-Journals Licenses Archive) is a national archive of interlibrary loan (ILL) clauses, extracted from standard and negotiated licences, to manage, to publicly share and to check the permitted uses of e-resources for ILL and document delivery.

The ALPE archive facilitates public and free access to a remarkable amount of information and data about ILL conditions granted by the most important commercial and academic publishers, and responds to the practical problems of managing and understanding ILL clauses in e-licences.

The solutions adopted by ALPE effectively solve many of the problems reported in the literature. These should help ILL librarians in dealing with the problems associated with ILL and licensing.