The implementation and usage of an electronic document delivery application in Korea

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to investigate the development and current usage status of dCube, the first electronic document delivery application in Korea; identify the effects of electronic document delivery; and present references to institutions that are considering the creation of similar systems. Design/methodology/approach - dCube development reports, usage manuals, and interview reports with field experts who were in charge of dCube's development were collected; and statistics data from 2007 to 2012 were analyzed. Findings - dCube, an open and user-friendly system, was developed through benchmarking of similar systems and in response to requests from member institutions. Since its development, regular mail use has decreased as dCube usage has highly increased. dCube's turn-around time is less than one day, compared to three to four days for regular mail. Originality/value - This study represents a thorough investigation and analysis of the development process and utility of the largest-scale electronic document delivery application in Korea, whose openness and convenience are good models for other ILL/DDS applications.