I want to share my experiences with the local interlibrary loan department. I live in a state where none of my ancestors ever lived so I have no need for local research. I live in the capital city and work downtown, very near to the state library. Since all of my research is in distant places, I have discovered what a help the interlibrary loan department is. In fact, I'm on a first-name basis with them now :-) Need an obituary? The ILL was able to obtain the microfilm of a Pennsylvania newspaper from 1940 and I found the obit I was looking for in two minutes. It turns out that I was told the wrong date of death by a few days and if I had asked someone to do a lookup, they probably wouldn't have been able to find it and I would have assumed it didn't exist. Need a book? I had learned of the existence of a family history book of a family that had origins in Baltimore. I could buy the book from the author or I could try and get it from ILL. This time I was not 100% successful; for some reason none of the libraries holding the book would let it go. This happens sometimes, I guess. So the ILL guy called me and I asked if they would send copies of the handful of pages I needed. And they did. At no charge. I have requested and received books written in German by German authors. I didn't know if these books would be available in U.S. libraries but they were. The point I'm trying to make is that the ILL dept. has access to the whereabouts of books and microfilms all over the country, including university libraries. Some libraries charge to loan things, all you have to do is specify a cap on the amount you're willing to pay, or I just ask them to advise me of the charge. Most of the stuff I've gotten has been free. I'd like to hear your experiences with your local ILL. If you haven't tried it yet, go talk to them and see what they can do for you. Robin Hoff Kaspar Volunteer host, Grant County, Wisconsin WIGenweb http://www.rootsweb.com/~wigrant

Dear Robin, I recently discovered the benefits of Interlibrary loan. I found information on a book about my family line but was unable to locate a copy. I contacted my local library and the interlibraray loan department put out a search for the book. They were unable to get me a copy, but did get a copy of the introduction which contained the author's name and address. I wrote to him and he sent me an e-mail copy of the book! It's definitely worth trying your library for interlibrary loans! pugs87 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robin Hoff Kaspar" <robinkaspar@attbi.com> To: <WIGRANT-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 6:45 AM Subject: [WIGRANT] Interlibrary loan--an overlooked resource > I want to share my experiences with the local interlibrary loan department. > I live in a state where none of my ancestors ever lived so I have no need > for local research. I live in the capital city and work downtown, very near > to the state library. Since all of my research is in distant places, I have > discovered what a help the interlibrary loan department is. In fact, I'm on > a first-name basis with them now :-) > > Need an obituary? The ILL was able to obtain the microfilm of a Pennsylvania > newspaper from 1940 and I found the obit I was looking for in two minutes. > It turns out that I was told the wrong date of death by a few days and if I > had asked someone to do a lookup, they probably wouldn't have been able to > find it and I would have assumed it didn't exist. > > Need a book? I had learned of the existence of a family history book of a > family that had origins in Baltimore. I could buy the book from the author > or I could try and get it from ILL. This time I was not 100% successful; for > some reason none of the libraries holding the book would let it go. This > happens sometimes, I guess. So the ILL guy called me and I asked if they > would send copies of the handful of pages I needed. And they did. At no > charge. > > I have requested and received books written in German by German authors. I > didn't know if these books would be available in U.S. libraries but they > were. > > The point I'm trying to make is that the ILL dept. has access to the > whereabouts of books and microfilms all over the country, including > university libraries. Some libraries charge to loan things, all you have to > do is specify a cap on the amount you're willing to pay, or I just ask them > to advise me of the charge. Most of the stuff I've gotten has been free. > > I'd like to hear your experiences with your local ILL. If you haven't tried > it yet, go talk to them and see what they can do for you. > > > Robin Hoff Kaspar > Volunteer host, Grant County, Wisconsin WIGenweb > http://www.rootsweb.com/~wigrant > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >