this icon has never been more apropos

[thedarlingone]

JESUS COCKWAFFLES

I went to check on my current library system's interlibrary loan policy, because clearly I don't have enough commitments without starting up Read All the Newberys again. ;P

They have a restriction against ILLing the same book twice in twelve months. O_O "You can't get via Interlibrary Loan: Books that you borrowed via Interlibrary Loan in the past year. You can only request a title once per year."

WHAT THE ACTUAL FLYING FUCKNUGGETS?! Who does that? What on earth is the possible rationale? I can understand "you can't have the US's sole library copy of some ancient book constantly on ILL" (although rare books are restricted separately), I could see something like a three-month restriction if there was simply too much volume, but a year?! What the kriff?

I mean, this doesn't interfere in any technical way with how Read All the Newberys works, but if shit comes up (as it so often does), I couldn't catch up on a missed book for a year? I just. What. WHATMST.

Comments

[pedanther]

The last time I tried to ILL a book, it got declined with the stated reason "This book is a catalogued as a young adult fiction and so cannot be loaned". I still haven't figured out what the line of causation is supposed to be there.

[isis]

That's really weird! I wonder if my library system has similar restrictions.

[melannen]

I would say how reasonable it is depends on how the ILL system works? Mine has two different systems - the statewide one, which is all automatic, and has no restrictions, and the nationwide one, which requires our ILL people to negotiate personally with ILL staff at other libraries for a favor, and some of the other libraries will start saying no if they feel like we're making unreasonable requests. The nationwide also has the lending library set the due dates, so it could be anything from a one-week checkout to a five-month checkout on the first try.

If it's more like our nationwide system, and especially if you've had people (or even A Person) abuse it by returning books and then repeatedly placing them on hold again immediately, I can see them setting that kind of limit to stop this - it's not a matter of workload for your ILL staff, it's a matter of maintaining good relationships with the ILL staffs on the other end. And the books come and go library mail, so it might take two weeks from request being agreed to book arriving, and another two weeks to get back, on top of the checkout period, so even a three-month limit might still mean it spends almost no time at the lending library.

A year still seems kind of excessive, but I still suspect it has more to do with the ILL people not wanting other libraries to cut them off for too many requests.