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

[Ray McCarthy]

rough estimate of 5000+ books?

I think less than 2000 excluding eBooks. But I've never counted them.

 

[Extollager]

I think less than 2000 excluding eBooks. But I've never counted them.

My guess was based on the account you gave of all those bookshelves!

 

[Ray McCarthy]

My guess was based on

I've fat technical books, old hard back fiction, fat Epic and collections paperbacks and file folders. Big books with pictures. I suppose though some fat omnibus editions count as 3 to 5 books as they are 3 to 5 titles?

 

[Extollager]

I'd personally count omnibuses as single volumes. I haven't counted my books since the 1970s. A great many of those volumes are gone, and lots have been added.

Thanks to everyone who has commented on interlibrary loan access.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Maybe a rough estimate of 5000+ books?

I think I miscounted before (estimating based on one shelf). The "Library" room alone must have over 2000 books. So though not 5000+ it must be 3000+, maybe more than 4K, not 1200+ !

ooops!

 

[Extollager]

I think I miscounted before (estimating based on one shelf). The "Library" room alone must have over 2000 books. So though not 5000+ it must be 3000+, maybe more than 4K, not 1200+ !

ooops!

It's starting to look like my estimate wasn't so far off.

 

[Mark Ragland]

I have used ILL from time to time. Where I live, I think you can have only 5 ILL books out at any one time. Here, it costs $3 per book. But, it used to be free.

I find ILL useful when I read books in a series. For example, when I started the John Ringo Posleen War series, the local library system didn't have the first two books. So, I got them through ILL. I'll have to use ILL again when I read the final book in the series, because the local library doesn't have that one either.

 

[dwndrgn]

Yes, I use ILL all the time. We're limited to three requests at a time but it is free to cardholders at my library. If you read digital books, I've heard of libraries that allow out of state/county people to purchase a digital use card so you can borrow ebooks from them. I haven't looked into it though so don't quote me on that.

I'd be lost without my library. My book budget is $0.00 so I'd read nothing otherwise!

 

[soulsinging]

I use this all the time. Pretty much every town around here has a library and they tend to link up regionally. I've very rarely had any trouble finding a book I wanted that way (the only exception being Chris Wooding's Ketty Jay series, but those were even hard to get from Amazon in the states).

 

[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.

That Tolkien item is now posted:

"Tolkien on Tolkien" Rare 1966 Diplomat Mag Autobiographical Article

 

[Ray McCarthy]

That Tolkien item is now posted

Ta.

I was at library yesterday. I forgot to ask about interlibrary loans (I've not used that since I lived in UK). I did ask about overdue books. Currently they have no fine mechanism! (broken!) but if someone wants it they text you. I pointed out that they don't have a mobile number for me!
I renewed the 2012 Writer's & Artist's Yearbook.