West Chicago Public Library District is proud to provide Interlibrary Loan services to our card holders. Interlibrary Loans are how WCPLD can get you materials that we don’t own and are not owned within by our library consortium (SWAN). Maybe you’re looking for a particularly old book, or a very specific edition of one of your favorite novels, or perhaps you need a super rare academic text. Whatever book it is, odds are we could get it for you, all for free! These books, audiobooks, CDs, etc. must be ordered through a specific ILL catalog or with help from a librarian.
Many people wonder what are Interlibrary Loans (ILL)? Technically speaking, any material that has been loaned to the West Chicago Public Library from another library or library consortium is an interlibrary loan. You may have noticed that you can request books from other libraries through our catalog. These materials are lent to West Chicago library patrons through the SWAN consortium, a group of over 100 libraries in the Chicagoland area. This is a fantastic way to get a lot of material, and we encourage you to make use of our catalog. Naturally, no library has the space or budget for every single book, interlibrary loans allow us to bring in materials for our patrons from across the country, all for free.
WCPLD patrons could request Books, DVDs, CDs, and journal Articles through ILL. It is important to remember that ILL material may take longer getting to our Library as your request may be coming from far away (we’ve borrowed books from Alaska before!). Receiving and checking-out your ILL is the same process as regular hold, just stop by the Circulation Desk with your WCPLD library card. Material loan periods remain unchanged, so you still get three weeks with each Book or CD and one week for each DVD. Of course, some books are extremely rare, fragile or old and may be restricted to in-library use only.
If you still can’t find the resource you’re looking for, please feel free to suggest a purchase, or chat with one of our librarians to see how we could help you today.