"Get It Through Inter-Library Loan!"
There is no way that I could afford to purchase all the books that I read. It seems that I always have four or five books that I am sampling simultaneously (I bore easily). It is hard to read this many books in a field without exhausting the local library’s selection in that field. As a matter of fact, Octavian and I have done just that at many branches of our city’s library!
Does this mean that the number of libraries to which we are willing to drive limits us?
Thankfully, there is another option for confirmed bibliophiles like us. Libraries across the country participate in registering their books in a database called OCLC or Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Called inter-library loan, this program enables a library patron to order any book in the database regardless of its location.
Over the past seven years we have ordered a huge amount of ILL’s and our sainted reference librarian, Monica has worked tirelessly to find every one of the weird, often out-of-print books that I could not live without. My hat is off to all the reference librarians across the country that spend their days searching for books and articles through OCLC.
Here’s how you can order a book on inter-library loan; ask your reference librarian for an ILL form. Fill the form out and return it to him/her. They look the book up on the database and once it is located they submit a request for it. The lending library will notify them if for some reason the book cannot be loaned (sometimes this has happened to me and usually it is because the book is super valuable or rare). While most often the ILL is FREE, the lending library may offer it for loan but require a stiff fee although I have only had to pay for an ILL once or twice in all these years. I think that some especially rare books are worth a small fee because it is such a privilege to read them…. usually there is no fee to order an ILL.
Once your reference librarian has submitted a request and it is available for loan, you wait! The length of time it takes for this ordering process to culminate in the coveted book varies. I’ve gotten books from as far away as British Colombia and whew, they took forever! Several months may elapse during the ordering phase but the books are worth the wait.
What kind of books do I get on ILL? Well, there was the time I was studying candida albicans and Monica ordered for me a college textbook about pleomorphism called Cell Wall Deficient Forms, by Lida Mattman. It came from a college biology course offered by a University in the next town. It was at least three inches thick and cost over $200. I paid nothing to borrow it. Then there was the time that I ordered an obscure out-of-print book about a contraceptive method involving moonlight, called Lunaception, by Louise Lacey. The scraggly little paperback arrived with no charges attached and I felt like Monica was Santa Claus!
My favorite trick is to go into a lovely book store like Barnes and Noble and slobber over the children’s picture story books, you know, the ones that cost at least $15 -$25? Then, I carefully note their titles and authors and have Monica get them for me. Oh, the hours we have spent with beautiful books. I like borrowing them before buying them because sometimes when you read them they are not as wonderful as anticipated. Borrowing them first is like taking a car for a test drive. If we fall in love with a book, like Antony’s favorite, The Discovery of Dragons, by Graeme Base, then eventually we buy it.
Surely, I would have spent thousands of dollars over the years for the books that I have been privileged to read without charge through inter-library loan. It’s a bargain any way you look at it!
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