It is recognized that interlibrary borrowing does not relieve any library of the responsibility for developing its own collection. Each library should provide the bulk of materials needed by its users for purposes of study, instruction, information and research.
The borrowing library should make every effort to exhaust its own resources before turning to interlibrary loan. It should also screen requests carefully before transmitting them to the Council, eliminating those which common sense indicates would not be supplied.
The borrowing library is responsible for returning loans promptly and in good condition. The borrowing library should respond quickly to overdue notices and is responsible for paying fees for lost books as levied by the lending library. The library should refuse to request books on interlibrary loan on behalf of borrowers who abuse the privilege.
Placing requests
Our network is part of an hierarchical system. Requests we cannot locate in the region we send to the New York State Interlibrary Loan Network (NYSILL) which searches the State Library in Albany and selected referral libraries in the State. The key to the success of NYSILL is that it is asked only for materials not available locally. The network would break down if the major libraries were asked to supply commonly held materials. Medically oriented requests not found on Long Island are transmitted to the Regional Medical Library interlibrary loan network in Brooklyn.
Public libraries submit their requests through their respective library systems, which process the requests through LILRC, NYSILL, or other channels.
All other libraries in the region should submit their requests to LILRC. Most libraries prefer to have local requests handled centrally, and decline to fill regional requests unless they have been transmitted by the Council. In special circumstances, libraries may arrange to deal directly with each other.
Form of requests
Borrowing libraries may find it helpful to develop worksheets (see samples in [Appendix B]) to be used by the reader and the librarian in preparing the interlibrary loan request, indicating all the items we need to know.
Requests may be submitted on LILRC interlibrary loan forms which we supply, and sent in by mail or by our driver. They may be placed by teletype, using a format based on the LILRC request form. Urgent requests may be placed by telephone.