Interlibrary Loan

Sometimes the item you want doesn’t belong to a PrairieCat library, interlibrary loan permits the library to borrow material owned by another library for you. Interlibrary loan may be used whenever requested material is not available within the PrairieCat database. It is available for all Peru patrons holding a valid Peru Library card in good standing i.e., owing no more than $5.00 in outstanding overdue fines or having no more than five books overdue.

To request interlibrary loan, search for the item in WorldCat. Peru Library cardholders can place holds in the WorldCat database. We can fill most of your requests from Illinois libraries, all of which use a free delivery system. However, in the event that we must request an item from out of state, we charge a cost recovery postage fee of $3.00. Please indicate (yes or no) in the WorldCat ILL  comments box if you are willing to pay this fee. If you are not a Peru Library cardholder please request your items through your home library.

Not all materials are available through interlibrary loan. The lending/owning library determines which of its items it will lend and under what conditions. Patrons are responsible for paying any fee charged by the lending library.Copyright  dates should be at least six months old before materials are requested on interlibrary loan. Libraries reserve new materials for use by their own customers and rarely lend new items via interlibrary loan. The owning library also sets the value of the item if it is lost or damaged, which may be several hundred dollars.  The Peru patron will be responsible for paying for any lost or damaged interlibrary loan material.