- Reason 1: No library wants to lend the item. This can happen with very rare items, older publications, and hard-to-replace genealogical material. It also frequently happens with DVDs, videos, and CDs - very few libraries are willing to let these items out.
- Reason 2: Some libraries may be willing to lend the item, but charge a fee to do so. Many academic libraries charge $20.00 or more to lend items to public libraries.
- Reason 3: The item has just been released or published. No library wants to let a recently acquired item vanish from their collection, when their taxpaying patrons may want it.
- Reason 4: The item was scheduled to be published, but has been delayed. If no one has the item, we cannot obtain it.
- Reason 5: Citation errors. With the advent of the Internet, more information is available on a variety of topics. Unfortunately, some people's citation lists are not as accurate as others; titles may be misquoted and misappropriated. Other people refer to these pages, and the errors perpetuate themselves.
- Reason 6: The item may not be available in the format you want. We have had increasing demand for books on CD; they are not released fast enough for the just-published book to have a CD format, unless it is a guaranteed best-seller.
We will do our best to obtain the items requested, but not everything ever published is available for interlibrary loan. We can usually fill 75-80 percent of the requests we get.
