Do you have access to (and use) free interlibrary loan?

[Extollager]

As I read comments here at Chrons, I get the impression that, for some, the options are just these: buy the book or borrow it from the library if the library owns it.

Do you have access to interlibrary loan books and other items for free? I do, at the principal library I use, and over the past 26 years have made literally thousands* of interlibrary loan requests, mostly for books but also for CDs, DVDs, and copies of articles. Once in a while the librarian who handles ILL requests has had to tell me that the only libraries that loan an item charge fees (typically US $10-15). I've done without the item in nearly all cases** where I'd have to pay. Every so often, also, she asks me to request the item again in a few months because the item is brand new and libraries don't want to lend it yet by ILL.

But I've been really impressed by the things I have been able to read -- for free -- via interlibrary loan.

Is this quite unusual? If your library has free ILL, is there a limit on how many requests you can make in a given time (e.g. a month or a year)?

And I'm wondering if some of you folks would find that you do have access to free ILL, but have never asked....


*According to the "My Account" feature, I have a total of 2,812 interlibrary loan requests. I think this would mean filled requests. I'm not absolutely sure this goes back to 1989, when I began using this library. I have 15 active requests according to this feature.

**An exception was a request for material from a special issue of Diplomat magazine, which featured a Tolkien profile written by Tolkien himself. I intend to post that over at the Tolkien subforum soon. For this material I was willing to pay.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Yes, I've availed myself of ILL from time to time -- but nowhere near your quite impressive total!

I don't recall ever being told that a library would charge for it, but it's possible, and I probably refused it at the time, if so.

There was one book that I tried really hard to steal from the library that loaned it through ILL, but in the end it would have cost me $80 (in the 1980s), and I had to regretfully return it. It was a marvelous political /historical work, published in the early 1900s IIRC, and though it had been loaned a couple of times, I was the only one who had ever read it -- which I know because the pages were not trimmed properly and I had to slit them apart in places in order to read it. I figured that when it went back to that library, someone would immediately decide (having never seen it before) that it was a waste of their space and they would toss it, or put it in a book sale for 50 cents. It was utterly ridiculous that they wanted $80 to replace it, given that it originally cost them less than $10 and nobody ever read it. Nevertheless, I had to "find" it.

I don't think the ILL system is as good now as it was twenty or thirty years ago, though, and I'm not sure why that would be. It seems, when I go looking for something, they don't find it nearly as easily as they used to. Seems like it ought to be better, with better technology, but perhaps they don't put as much effort into it now that things are available in so many other ways.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I pay a small amount - about 20p for it, and I use it and my library a lot .

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

There is no possibility of ILL here. For me, there really are only those two options (buy book/ebook, loan if from library). Gutenberg project website has been a treasure for me though since Croatian copyright law is similar enough to Australian in regards to its length so I can legally use that site.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

For fiction the library here* pretty much just has mass market, mostly recent. ILL exists, but the stock is similar in most libraries.
I've got a few reference books on Writing and Publishing out of the library, which is something.

(* Actually outskirts Limerick City, Co. Clare is better for Village libraries than Co. Limerick which has a truck).

Gutenberg is good for older books which have to be modern popular reprints or they are not in the library. I did get a Manga version of King Lear (any text was 100% original, setting was Mohican Indians, British and French).

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

Gutenberg is good for older books which have to be modern popular reprints or they are not in the library. I did get a Manga version of King Lear (any text was 100% original, setting was Mohican Indians, British and French).

Yes, Gutenberg only has older books and that is its disadvantage, but it is still much better to at least gain some books for free. Libraries here are poorer and poorer each year. Few years back, I had to read Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time for my Literature Class and they didn't have a single usable copy. Some were never returned, some were damaged beyond use.

I mainly get Manga via fanscanlations floating online. I have no actual way to buy them except rare, "popular" titles that actually get to bookstores and they rarely interest me.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Manga via fanscanlations floating online

I can't see the attraction of it.
I only borrowed the King Lear out of curiosity as I had just read Shakespeare's play and two of the legends it's based on. Shakespeare's ending is of course more tragic than any of the earlier stories.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

I can't see the attraction of it.
I only borrowed the King Lear out of curiosity as I had just read Shakespeare's play and two of the legends it's based on. Shakespeare's ending is of course more tragic than any of the earlier stories.

It can offer some truly great stories much like any other comic or book. It can be great, exciting, and thought-provoking, but it can be bad, boring, and vapid. All depends on what you find.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

can be great, exciting, and thought-provoking, but it can be bad, boring, and vapid. All depends on what you find.

That's logical.
But I prefer my own BGI adapter, and like reading, so have progressively lost interest in Graphic Novels/Comics/Films.

[*Brain Graphic Image generation]

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

People say i have my own library

 

[Ray McCarthy]

People say i have my own library

We have an ex-bedroom that I use as a study that we call the library. I've considered a library database (I've got 2 x barcode readers, one is wireless and built custom databases for 30+ years). Putting the books in is a lot of work. If there was free access to ISBN easily via software that would remove typing in about half of them. I must see if Calibre can be interfaced, (I have about 600+ eBooks). Calibre, Nook, Kindle are all horribly lacking in Book organisation. I was doing better document management systems and library databases 20 years ago.

6 x triple width size shelves, some tall for outsize,
5 x double width shelves, most taller than normal
38 x regular shelves.

Kitchen though has 3 x bookcases, landing has 2x regular cases, small bedroom has 4x (one very large), main bedroom has 4x (two are large), lounge has 3 big bookcases and built in shelves either side of chimney breast mostly for DVDs, but some books.

Making more bookcases as there are about 40 books doubled on some shelves and two large bags of books on the floor. Not all are fiction.

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

I estimate my whole collection comprises about 4500+ books.It used to be more

 

[Connavar]

I would have read like 200 books less at-least if i didnt use interlibrary loan system, to me as younger reader in Uni who couldnt just buy all the classic fiction or modern SFF i wanted i had to make the library get books for me.

There is a library in north Sweden that had half of the SF books i have read it seems. It cost like 1 pund or a 10 swedish kronor to order interlibrary books from other states and its free in the same country,city. I have paid 1000s of swedish kronor for interlibrary loan books to me it kept me reading since my literary taste are less mainstream than the books the local libraries i have. A small fee for the all wonderful writers i tried and read

I have been hugely impressed to find hard to find books are somewhere else in the country. Im not rich i buy books only when im sure the writer is big fav but when i want to try like say 1909 book from a classic great interlibrary is the way.
In Sweden have access to all the books in the library is system is a given right for any reader, they take that very seriously. Its a country that have huge respect for libraries, literature. They almost beg you to order them to buy in rare books. The country that gives away Nobel Prize in Literature take books very seriously.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

my whole collection comprises about 4500+ books

Sounds like a library to me. I bet there isn't much bare wall.

 

[Elvraie]

I'm living in England, where interlibrary loans are only for the same County and cost £1 a book, which is fair, as libraries were hit badly by the recession and the resulting budget cuts. When I came in this country about 20 years ago, I was thrilled that book borrowing was free . In France, where I come from, you have to pay up to 30 Euros to borrow books every year. I didn't see anything about ILL, either. In Oxford, there is the Maison Francaise, with its library. Since 2012, they reduced their hours and put a fee on book borrowing. Well, there is still the University's libraries, which I work for, if I want to borrow books in French.

 

[Kylara]

Last time I inter library loaned they lost track of the three books I borrowed and refused to take them back. They had somehow, in being transferred, been deleted from the system. So now I have 3 fantastic apocalyptic/dystopian critical texts all for me But I did used to use the ILL lots, less so now that I buy everything because I want to have it to refer to whenever I fancy. My uni is part of the Uni of London so I get free loans and access to Senate House library which is an incredible resource that I use as much as possible. I have no idea how I am going to cope without having access to all of the journals and online subscriptions only texts that I have access to via university when I finish (I'll just have to do more post-grad stuff I guess )
I have tried my local library, but they just seem to have kiddy books and those "true" depressing memoir type books (lots of small children and elderly people in my area) and whilst they are happy to get books in they aren't the most organised library in the world (see above!)

 

[JunkMonkey]

First time I used interlibrary loan was way back in the dark ages before the Internet. I had just read the first three parts of Fred Pohl's Gateway in Galaxy magazine and realised I didn't own (even then years out of print) last part. The bloke from the travelling library van which parked outside my house once a fortnight sorted me with an interlibrary loan of the whole novel.

A couple of years ago while reading Googlebooks' online scanned and OCRd copy of Sir Max Pemberton's 1911 potboiler Captain Black I hit a couple of pages of pure gibberish. An inter-library loan sorted by my local branch library in Fort William filled in the gaps when they managed to find me a copy from Oxford University. I had to go to the library to read it though; I wasn't allowed to take it home. Really bloody awful book. I don't know why I bothered.

 

[The Ace]

I have, but seldom use it.

I live close to the biggest library in my area, and a simple request is usually enough.

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

Sounds like a library to me. I bet there isn't much bare wall.

you're right,there isn't

 

[Extollager]

We have an ex-bedroom that I use as a study that we call the library. I've considered a library database (I've got 2 x barcode readers, one is wireless and built custom databases for 30+ years). Putting the books in is a lot of work. If there was free access to ISBN easily via software that would remove typing in about half of them. I must see if Calibre can be interfaced, (I have about 600+ eBooks). Calibre, Nook, Kindle are all horribly lacking in Book organisation. I was doing better document management systems and library databases 20 years ago.

6 x triple width size shelves, some tall for outsize,
5 x double width shelves, most taller than normal
38 x regular shelves.

Kitchen though has 3 x bookcases, landing has 2x regular cases, small bedroom has 4x (one very large), main bedroom has 4x (two are large), lounge has 3 big bookcases and built in shelves either side of chimney breast mostly for DVDs, but some books.

Making more bookcases as there are about 40 books doubled on some shelves and two large bags of books on the floor. Not all are fiction.

Maybe a rough estimate of 5000+ books?