I Wanted to Read That, But You Don’t Have It!

Published on July 23, 2024

By Alice S. 

Whether you are an avid reader or take a more casual approach, sometimes you may find yourself finishing a book and realizing that it is part of a series. Librarians work diligently to get all items in a series, but at times one or two may get lost, damaged or just very well-worn and subsequently withdrawn. We try to catch these and reorder if we can, but that is not always possible. Of course you want to find out what’s next, or, if you read book two or three, figure out how the characters got there in the first place. You go to the library catalog, but there aren’t any hits in the search results. Oh no!! What now?

When you don’t see a book you’re looking for in our catalog, ask staff for help! Sometimes we can find it using a different search term, but there are times when our library system doesn’t have a copy of the item or in your preferred format.

We can still, almost always, get the item for you! It may take just a couple days more, but it will magically appear as a hold for you. (Ok, not magic, but what librarians do is pretty awesome.)

Interlibrary Loan is a service free to you with your library card. If there is an item that our library system doesn’t currently have, we work with libraries near (or far from) us to get the item for you. Whether you submit the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) request yourself or have staff help you, it is sent to our ILL team and we ask for it from another library system.

Most often we get items that are in a series that we don’t have, but requests can be made for most anything. These requests can be for items like:

• a cookbook for a specific diet (ex: sugar-free baking or vegetarian Indian cuisine)
• a book about a unique trade (coin collecting)
• an in-depth book about a new diagnosis (diabetes)
• a TV series on DVD that the library doesn’t own
• an old Young Adult book you remember loving as a teenager
• a format that you prefer (large print or Playaway)
  or even
• getting an article that cannot be found through our databases for research or a nonfiction book you may be writing.

Interlibrary Loans can come from nearly anywhere in the U.S. Often they come from other South Dakota libraries, like Brookings Public Library or Yankton Public Library. But we’ve also gotten items from further away, like Miami-Dade Public Library in Florida; Boston Public Library in Massachusetts; even Sitka, Alaska. Libraries often work together to supplement each other’s collections. (Exponential magic!) This also means that Siouxland Libraries sends our items out to help other libraries fulfill their requests. In the items being returned to Siouxland, we’re sometimes gifted with a sticker or printed thank you, but for me, the best thank-yous are the handwritten notes from customers.

So, next time you can’t find something specific, please visit with library staff, either in person or via the phone, and we will see if we can get the item from another library system through Interlibrary Loan.

To try it out, visit our webpage here.