摘要：Librarians are justifiably proud of interli-brary loan (ILL); the development of re-source sharing is perhaps our greatest colla-borative achievement. So it is understanda-ble that we demand that publishers allow ILL rights for e-books – understandable, but questionable. ILL is a wonderful system for moving physical books from one library to another and allows us to extend our collec-tions beyond our campus boundaries. But it is not the best method for getting a digital resource to the user who needs it imme-diately. When we demand the ability to loan e-books to other libraries, we are confusing the means (ILL) with the end (getting a book to the user who needs it as quickly and cheaply as possible). Instead, we should be demanding that publishers make e-books available to vendors who can manage an easy short-term lease process that will be cheap enough to replace ILL. A short-term lease process allows a library to provide immediate and temporary access to e-book content not in its institutional or consortial collection for a fraction of the list price, ob-viating the need to borrow that content from another library.
