Interlibrary Loan (ILL) Service

We use OCLC, one of the largest library networks in the world, to locate materials which are unavailable at the Tompkins County Public Library or within the Finger Lakes libraries. Please read what may be requested.

Titles not found in the Tompkins County Public Library catalog or in the Finger Lakes Library System may be available through interlibrary loan.

To request a book on interlibrary loan, you must be a registered Tompkins County Public Library cardholder with no more than $5.00 in fines on your account. A maximum of five requests per day are allowed. There is a $.50 fee per request payable when the interlibrary loan is picked up from the Circulation Desk. Lending libraries may charge an additional fee for periodical articles.  When requesting periodical articles outside the Finger Lakes Library System, we recommend placing a limit on how much you would be willing to spend for an article.  Five or ten dollars is the recommended limit.   Contact the Reference Desk for more information and assistance at 607-272-4556.

What May Be Requested:

• Adult and Juvenile Non-fiction Books
• Adult and Juvenile Fiction Books - we do not borrow items that can be purchased for less than $10
• Periodical Articles
• Sheet Music
• Microform
• Large Type Books
• Foreign Language Material

Exclusions:

• Anything currently owned by any of the FLLS member libraries
• New Materials - published in the last 12 months
• DVDs and VHS videos
• Music CDs
• Reference Materials - The lending library may be willing to copy some small number of pages given sufficient information.
• Rare Books (may include some genealogy)
• Bound or entire issues of periodicals
• Books-on-Tape and Books-on-CD