Anyone else's library do this?

[desertgrandma]

I belong to the Maricopa County library system......Altho it is specified as such, all libraries in Maricopa county are not included. I noticed this message posted recently...



Welcome to Interlibrary Loan
Beginning September 1, 2008 there will be a nonrefundable Interlibrary Loan Request Fee of $5.00 per item.

If a book is not owned by the Library District we may be able to borrow it for you from another library system. This service is called Interlibrary Loan and is available to Maricopa County residents who have a current Maricopa County library card in good standing.
At this time, we do not loan:

* Popular material that has been in publication less than one year, including best-sellers and popular non-fiction.
* Multiple copies (bulk loans) of the same book.
* Reference materials.
* Rare books.
* Complete issues of periodicals.
* Media Items: CD’s, DVD’s, and Videos.

Items may not be renewed. There is a fine of $2.00 per day for overdue items. It usually takes 14-16 days to receive an ILL item. After you are notified, you may pick it up at your home branch.

Reshelving Fee
For requests not picked up in 7 days $2.00 per item



This from a "library" that refuses to shelve fiction books by subject.......only by authors last name. When I asked "why", the answer was "it takes too much work for our volunteers to shelves books by subject"

I once requested a Harlen Ellison book that was an 'interlibrary loan'. "The Essential Ellison, a 35 year Retrospective" When I finally was able to get it, the clerk at the desk was very specific I could have it for only 7 days, it could not be renewed and it was to be returned to the desk to be signed off. I am a fast reader, but even so, to read a 1012 page book in one week and throughly enjoy it is ridiculous.. This oh so valuable book was in deplorable condition. When you opened it the spine practically fell apart. I was so pissed, I went home and found a like new copy on Amazon.com for $12 and change.

I think I am done with the library.

[BookishDreamer]

That's awful! I'm thankful that Georgia has PINES. No fees and so far I haven't run into any restrictions. I log into my account, find a book I want, and put it on hold. There are about 275 libraries in the system so I've got a pretty good selection and it shows up at my library in a week or so. I can even renew a "loaned" books the same way I do for a book belonging to my library. There's no special book return procedure. All of the books have a barcode so it's pretty easy for the library staff to figure out if the book needs to be returned to another library.

Dreamer

[JSWolf]

We have interlibrary loans for free. But we cannot renew and I think we get 14 or 21 days.

http://www.mln.lib.ma.us/virtcat.htm

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Welcome to Interlibrary Loan
Beginning September 1, 2008 there will be a nonrefundable Interlibrary Loan Request Fee of $5.00 per item.

If a book is not owned by the Library District we may be able to borrow it for you from another library system. This service is called Interlibrary Loan and is available to Maricopa County residents who have a current Maricopa County library card in good standing.
At this time, we do not loan:

* Popular material that has been in publication less than one year, including best-sellers and popular non-fiction.
* Multiple copies (bulk loans) of the same book.
* Reference materials.
* Rare books.
* Complete issues of periodicals.
* Media Items: CD’s, DVD’s, and Videos.

Items may not be renewed. There is a fine of $2.00 per day for overdue items. It usually takes 14-16 days to receive an ILL item. After you are notified, you may pick it up at your home branch.

Reshelving Fee
For requests not picked up in 7 days $2.00 per item

My library offers Interlibrary Loan services. The fee is whatever the postage costs. $5.00 is a bit more than one-way postage for a typical hardback library book.

Those restrictions are pretty common. While my library will request a recently published book for me, they do point out that a library owning the book is unlikely to be willing to part with it while it is in demand at the home facility. The owning library usually sets the date by which the ILL item must be returned. In our part of the world, that's usually 21 or 28 days from the time that the book is mailed from the owning library. My library then sets the return date about 3 days before the item is due back to the owning library in order to give them time to pack and mail it.

The reshelving fee is the only fee that my library doesn't assess -- but I do owe the ILL fee even if I don't pick up the item I requested.

ILL is a godsend when your local library has a limited collection. I live in a rural area and many of the books that I read would not be a good fit for the permanent collection at this library. It's also a great way to get the early books in a series when you suddenly discover an author and the earlier books are not in print. Unless I think I'm going to want the books in my personal collection, I'll go with ILL rather than BookMooch or PaperBack Swap.

[nekokami]

Not sure about my current town library. The one in my last town didn't charge for ILL if they could get the book within the state network, but if they had to go outside the network, they would pass along whatever fees the external library imposed. So I think part of the problem might be that libraries are charging to provide books through ILL these days, as well.

[JSWolf]

The link to the MLN ILL is within the state. So that's ok. We don't have any ILL that is outside the state.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Not sure about my current town library. The one in my last town didn't charge for ILL if they could get the book within the state network, but if they had to go outside the network, they would pass along whatever fees the external library imposed. So I think part of the problem might be that libraries are charging to provide books through ILL these days, as well.

That wouldn't be the case here. All the Inter-library loans are within the county. Also, I checked other libraries within the county....they do not charge, either for Ill or 'reshelving'. AND their checkout are between 14 and 21 days.