Interlibrary Loan Service

Interlibrary-loan is a service used to request books from other libraries when the title is not held in the Cornish Library collection. If the Cornish Library does not have a book you want, consult with one of the librarians (Heather Sheppard or Hollis Near) to see how best to find a copy. Sometimes we either refer you to another library in the area or request the book through interlibrary loan.

LOCAL LIBRARY REFERRAL. First we will first check to see if the book is available at your closest public library: Seattle Public Library System or King County Library System or other regional library systems. They may be able to send it to the branch library nearest your home. If you cannot get the book from any libraries in the area, we will try to obtain it via Interlibrary-loan.

INTERLIBRARY LOAN - HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE? Interlibrary Loan takes time since the book has to be sent through the mail. At the longest, an interlibrary loan transaction can take anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks, depending upon location and availability. Most books take 4-5 business days to ship, but this cannot be guaranteed. We can usually advise you whether a book will be difficult to obtain before we submit the request. (Most libraries do not send CD or DVD formats through interlibrary-loan.)

DOES IT COST ANYTHING? There is usually no fee charged for Interlibrary-loan. Cornish Library has pre-paid for a limited number of Interlibrary-loan transactions per year to cover this. Some libraries lend for free and others charge a wide range of loan fees. We try to borrow for free, or for a minimal fee, whenever possible. If you are requesting something extremely rare, there is the possibility that it will only be available for a significant lending fee. If that is the case, we will notify you to discuss the options. If a lending fee is prohibitively expensive, we may have to charge for the lending service.