Interlibrary Loan is the process of borrowing materials from other libraries for our patrons. This also includes sending items out to other libraries.
Forsyth County Public Library has one of the most active Interlibrary Loan systems in the southeast. Fiscal Year 2020 saw a 94.4% success rate in terms of requests from FCPL patrons that the Library was able to successfully fill. The total number of requests in FY2020 was just over 4,100 items. This is a very high number even given the lack of Interlibrary Loan activity from March 24 through June 14.
Interlibrary Loan operations are among the last things that are reactivating at many libraries across the nation. This has made it a bit harder to find items for patrons through Interlibrary Loan. As we are required to go out in a larger radius than normal to borrow items, this may cause a bit more of a delay than normal from the time a patron places a request to when it arrives. Patrons have been excited to see Interlibrary Loan services restart. We had 363 requests for items in the later half of June, and for the first half of July we have had over 232 new requests.
Tanya Rodabaugh is FCPL's Interlibrary Loan Specialist. She is also assisted at times by Meredith Causey, our Materials Supervisor, and Terri Crowhurst, our volunteer who often helps with Interlibrary Loan.
Should staff find a Library item returned that is not an FCPL item, please check to see if it is an Interlibrary Loan item. When placing items in Polaris, we use the barcode it was given by its home/lending library.
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