Since services constitute the ideal setting to implement a
TDABC system in order to improve the service’s cost management,
we performed a case study at the Arenberg library of the
Catholic University of Leuven (KULeuven). Although we argue
that TDABC could improve the cost management of all library
services, as identified by Ellis-Newman and Robinson,2 Ellis-
Newman,3 and Goddard and Ooi,5 we only concentrated on the
inter-library loan (ILL) service, for several reasons. First, ILL is
directly linked to the increasing cost pressures on university
libraries. Indeed, Nitecki and Renfro7 confirm that library
management relies more and more on ILL, in order to provide
good library services in times of decreasing library buying
power. When books or journals are not available in the library of
choice, readers can request them from other libraries via the twodirectional
ILL system. Second, an accurate cost calculation is
important for ILL services. On the one hand, the processing costs
for an inter-library loan are higher than for an internal loan,
because inter-library loans require higher-level staff and are