Interlibrary loans

If Burnaby Public Library does not own an item 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 information desk or make a request over the telephone. Please have as much information available as possible, such as author, title, edition, ISBN, publisher, date. Use the links on the right sidebar of this page to help you find the necessary information, or contact us for help. You may request to pick up materials at any BPL branch. The ILL procedure can take from one to six weeks and sometimes longer.

Payment

There is a $0.50 charge per item borrowed. In addition, any service fees set by the lending library are passed on to the borrowing patron. You are therefore asked on the ILL 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 up to $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 up to $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.