Inter-library loans

[fivemack]

An ILL through Cambridge library used to cost three pounds, and this was a magical level: instead of paying £2.76 to Amazon for a book from a 1p-seller who charged the standard postage, I could pay £3 and the library would take the book away afterwards.

I suppose that this should have struck me as strange, since an ILL implies moving the book from one library to another and back and second-class postage for a book is £2.36 each way; but maybe you could cut a factor two off that by posting books in batches, it doesn't matter to me if an ILL takes two weeks.

I went in to collect an ILL today and was told that the fee had gone up to five pounds. I pointed out that this stopped them being competitive with Amazon, and the librarian said 'but it costs us thirteen pounds to process an ILL'. Librarian salaries are about £20k per year, so with overheads this is saying that it takes most of an hour of librarian time plus postage for a second-class small packet to do a single ILL.

This isn't a problem for me; I can switch to buying the books from Amazon, and I can donate them to the library afterwards if I want the library to take them away. But I'd have used the service less if I'd known it was so expensive to provide.

Comments

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I have no evidence that the library accepts donations: they take books away, but I haven't seen them appear on their shelves or their catalogue afterwards.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Well if they sell them for a pound in a booksale, that's the same as if you gave them a pound.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Indeed, I used to buy lots of books from my local (to work) library's "for sale" shelves, which were a combination of donations and "remove from collection" stuff (older travel books, good food guide 2001, trashy paperbacks etc.) ... I once went in and there were half a dozen brand new star trek paperbacks at 35p each, so I thought "well, why not?" and when I got to the pay desk they asked if I wanted any more ... they'd had a bulk donation and I ended up with 54 books at 18p each :-) ... of course I've never read them .. (doh!)

But I've also got some wonderful books that I'm very happy to have that way as well.

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

The library at the university where I work accepts donations in theory, but I'm still waiting for them to decide if they want the post-grad level maths books from the list that I gave them a month of two later.