Interlibrary Loan Policy

Timberland Regional Library 
Serving Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason, Pacific and Thurston Counties

Purpose

To provide direction for Timberland Regional Library (TRL) staff on Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to the public. 

Scope

This policy applies to all service points of TRL. 

Policy

TRL will endeavor to borrow materials or obtain information from other library systems on behalf of a patron if needs cannot be met by the TRL collection. 

TRL will loan materials to other library systems. 

TRL will only provide ILL service to residents of its service area and to those who have paid the non-resident fee for service. TRL will not provide ILL service to those who have a TRL library card based on a reciprocal agreement with another library system. 

An institutional TRL library card may not be used for ILL service. Individual students who have a TRL library card will receive ILL service. School and academic libraries will not receive service because they have the ability to process their own ILL requests. 

There are limits to the types of materials that can be requested through ILL, limits to the currency of the materials requested, and limits to the number of ILL requests in process for a patron at any given time. Requests that do not adhere to those limits will be returned to the patron. 

TRL will pass through to the library patron any charges that are applied by the lending libraries. 

The patron is responsible for all late fees and the cost of a lost or damaged item. 

TRL reserves the right to deny an ILL request. 

The Executive Director is authorized to establish and enforce reasonable limits and fees for interlibrary loan services and will inform the Board of changes.  

Definitions  
Interlibrary Loan (ILL): The temporary loan of individual library materials and the procurement of periodical photocopies between TRL and other library systems to accommodate the needs of users. 

Reciprocal Agreement: An agreement between different library systems to allow patrons of one system to get a library card in the other system. 

In Process: The period starting when a request is received by TRL and ending when the item has been returned to TRL by the patron.  

References 
Interlibrary Loan Borrowing Procedure 

Effective 8/1/2019
Review Date 5/1/2026 

Policy Number: 002
Policy Revision Dates:
#002 - 5/1/15 

By the enactment of this policy the Board of Trustees of Timberland Regional Library is concurrently rescinding any prior policy or procedure within TRL that is either in conflict with or expansive of the matters addressed in this policy.

Interlibrary Loan Policy (pdf), opens a new window

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