Interlibrary Loan Update

Submitted by Jeff Fisher

Interlibrary Loan is alive, well, and thriving at Forsyth County Public Library during 2020.  

FCPL was among the first libraries in Georgia to resume interlibrary loan operations in terms of both borrowing and lending items.  Many academic, public, and private libraries across the state have yet to resume operations, or are only receiving returns of items loaned pre-COVID.  This includes many large public library systems, such as Cobb County, Dekalb County, and Fulton County. 

During the month of October 2020, FCPL was the 2nd largest public library loaner of materials in the state, sending out 65 requests to borrowing libraries.  (The largest public library lender in the state was Gwinnett County Public Library with 69 items loaned.)  We had 212 requests for items during October, but many of these requests were automatically deflected as they were for items in formats for which we do not lend through interlibrary loan, ex. new books or music cds.  We also often receive requests to borrow books that are already checked out by FCPL patrons.  (The University of Georgia was the top lending library among academic libraries with 1,596 filled requests out of 2,584 requests in total.)  

FCPL was second in the state in terms of the number of items our patrons requested that we were able to get for them.  FCPL was able to successfully request 382 items out of 415 total requests.  This success rate is a bit lower than normal due to fewer available libraries to request materials from during COVID.  The University of Georgia was the only institution to make more successful requests than FCPL with 438 requests filled out of 669 total.  The Centers for Disease Control made more requests than FCPL, with 483 requests, but had fewer requests filled than FCPL, with 359 successful requests.  

Tanya Rodabaugh is the Interlibrary Loan Specialist in the FCPL Materials department.  Meredith Causey, Materials Services Supervisor, assists Tanya with ILL duties and serves as Tanya's backup when she is away.  Our FCPL patrons appreciate their hard work in the field of Interlibrary Loan.