InterLibrary Loan
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InterLibrary Loan (also known as ILL, a rather unfortunate moniker, if you ask me) opened up an entire world of books for me.
You see, I was that kid – the one who went through the entire school library book by book and read everything that looked interesting.
Doing so exposed me to far more books than I would otherwise have found, but it also meant that by the time I reached my senior year of high school…I was kinda out of books.
So then I found the book store! Did you know they SELL books? That you can keep for ever and ever?
And then I found out how much they cost and immediately deflated.
But then I found the USED book store! Ah, Half-Price Books, the years of memories we’ve shared.
Problem is – used book stores tend to recycle the same books over and over again. Anything new gets snapped up pretty quickly, and I’ve already read everything Piers Anthony ever wrote.
Plus, I got tired of spending money on books I found I didn’t like after I got to read them.
I needed something new.
Or, rather, I needed to revisit something old. The library. Turns out that while I’d been dallying with bookstores, the library went and upgraded itself.
I can get almost any book from my library. They may not have it in stock, but they’ll put in a request with a library that DOES, then email me when the book is at my library and ready for pick up.
I fell in love. Big time.
Today, for example, I requested…oh…six or seven books that have been hyped on various blogs that I read. Most of them had a wait list – 5 books available, 10 hold requests, that sort of thing.
No big deal, because I don’t have to remember it. Six months from now, I’ll get an email that such and so a book is ready for me, and I don’t mind the wait. It’s free, and if I like the book, I go out and buy it.
If you were unaware of this feature in your local library, I highly recommend hightailing it over to said edifice and asking about it. Totally free, totally awesome.
Libraries, putting books in hands all over the world. <3
I am not-so-patiently waiting for the 4 month waiting period to expire on my shiny new library card to be able to use the ILL. Living in a small town means I have a small library, but Austin… now they have just about everything under the sun!
@Lauren
Waiting period?!
I’m very glad that my library is part of the bigger county library system. I can request books and also request which library from which I’d like to pick it up. This is nice, since I pass 3 of the libraries during my commute and our ‘local’ library is on the other side of town, down the godawful planned “main street” of doom.
As a bonus, they also have ILL, though the last book I got was suspiciously lacking any library identifiers.. MYSTERY LIBRARY!
I used to <3 interlibrary loan. You can get all kinds of rare books, some of which from some strange places. In related news, I also used to like Kinkos.
@KristenSue
Oh, nice! I think I get those options, too, even though I only want to use the one library.
@Brad-o
Your odd usage of past tense concerns me.
Were you attacked by a rampaging Kinkos as a small child?
@Tami,
I just haven’t used it in a good long while and can’t think of any out of print, out of copyright books I want anymore — well, maybe 1. I mainly used it for research and I have a practical reference library in the room I’m typing in.
I’d like ILL more if I didn’t have to pay $0.50 per hold and have a limit of 25 holds at a time.
(Although I do duck the hold fees because I volunteer at the library.)
@Brad-O
I don’t use it for rare books, I just use it for regular ones. ^_^
Then again, I’ve SEEN some of your library. Egads, you deserve to call it “library”. Makes mine look like “some shelves”
@Katy
Egads, you have to PAY? I’ve never had to pay! And no limits, either!
The county library system started charging for ILL/holds ten years ago — budget reasons, I expect. The cost is low enough that I don’t mind too much. If I don’t want to pay, I just haunt the computerized catalog and go directly to a library where the book is on the shelf. I have half a dozen branches within a ten minute drive of my house.
And the hold shelves at my local branch are never empty — probably 200-300 volumes on them at any given time.
@Katy
Still, even at fifty cents apiece, I’d be less likely to try out new books. What would be awesome is a system like the Kindle offers – first three chapters are free, but you pay to get the rest of the book. =]
@Tami,
Actually, we need to buy more bookshelves. :D Only 1 full one and 1 half one more will fit in our office space without removing the computer desk (which would allow another 2) in our library without covering a window. Maybe I’ll eventually turn the walls into bookshelves. ;)
@Brad-O
This, also, does not surprise me.