Quote:
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.