Interlibrary loans
If Burnaby Public Library does not own an item that you want, we will try to borrow it from another library system for you.
There are certain types of material that may not be requested via ILL:
- Circulating material already owned by Burnaby Public Library.
- Books published in the last 12 months.
- Audiovisual materials, such as cassettes, compact discs, videocassettes, DVDs and CD-roms.
In addition, lending libraries may not lend the following types of materials:
- High-demand titles, best-sellers
- Magazines (except for photocopies of specific articles)
- Reference materials
- Rare books
- Paperbacks (uncatalogued)
Procedure
Ask for an ILL form at any branch Info Desk or make a request over the telephone. Please have as much information available as possible, such as author, title, edition, ISBN, publisher, date. Also, please make sure to have the necessary information if you want to have an article photocopied for you. You may request to pick up materials at any BPL branch. The ILL procedure can take from 1 to 6 weeks and sometimes longer.
Payment
There is a $0.50 charge. In addition, any service fees set by the lending library are passed on to the borrowing patron, therefore you will be asked on the form how much you are willing to pay. There are photocopy charges for articles. You are responsible for lost or damaged materials.
Items requested from the rest of Canada
You must be willing to pay $10 for any request that can only be filled from a library in Canada but outside of B.C. We will only charge you if the owning library charges us for the loan. However your request will not be processed unless you indicate your acceptance of a possible $10 charge.
Items requested from the US
You must be willing to pay $20 for any request that can only be filled from a library in the US. We will only charge you if the owning library charges us for the loan. However your request will not be processed unless you indicate your acceptance of a possible $20 charge.
Loan period
The loan period is four weeks unless the lending library requires a shorter loan period. Academic libraries will normally allow two weeks. Usually interlibrary loans cannot be renewed.
Returns
Please return the materials to the branch you picked them up at. Please make sure the pink paper band is still on the material.