It turns out that the pricing I found for inter-library loan through the University of Kent was incorrect; prices went up this year. While it is true that departments have a budget for this sort of thing, I’m still displeased about the whole situation.
In short, the US got libraries right, and the UK got them wrong. Consider: the University of Kent just invested in a card-swipe system (that doesn’t work reliably), and now you must have your student ID to enter or leave the library. Please! Compared to my experiences with libraries at a variety of institutions in the U.S. (Berea, Oberlin, Kenyon, Cornell, Indiana), you can just go in and make use of the library as a member of the public. Checking materials out might be difficult (and some special collections might be off-limits, as is expected), but still… it’s a library! You’re supposed to be able to come and go as you please, with some conditions (eg. a library card) on actually removing things.
I just applied for a Reader’s Pass at the British Library. The collections of the library are, generally speaking, off-limits—that is, you can’t even go in!—unless you obtain a pass. What isn’t clear is how difficult it is to obtain such a pass; hopefully I’ll qualify. I would like to note that it is significantly cheaper (at $18/round trip) to go up to London and do a bunch of research, than it is to order things through inter-library loan at $15/article. Oy!
Libraries. I can honestly say that I think we got them right in the States.