Length of loans:

• Marina loans are for 3 weeks.
• OCLC loan periods are set by the lending library and may be a few days to several weeks long.
• Interlibrary Loan items borrowed via Marina can be renewed. OCLC items cannot be renewed.

Fees and fines:

• There is no fee for Marina requests and loans. OCLC loans may have a fee, set by the lender, and the form will ask you to indicate the amount you are willing to pay.
• There is a $1.00 fee for holds not picked up within 10 days of the notification of their availability. This fee applies to interlibrary loan requests as well.
• Interlibrary Loan overdue fines are the same as fines for MCPL overdue items.
• If an Interlibrary Loan book is lost or damaged, the charges billed to Montgomery County by the lender will be charged to you, the customer. These charges can be considerable if the lender is an academic institution or special library, and if the loaned material is comparatively rare. Lenders will not accept substitute or replacement copies of titles.

Maximum number of requests
You may have a maximum of 15 hold requests on your account at one time. This includes holds for materials owned by MCPL and interlibrary loan requests.

We do not provide a rush service for ILL requests. Please discuss your needs with our librarians. They may be able to find an item for you online, in an electronic collection, or in a nearby library. In addition, as a resident of Montgomery County you may register to borrow materials directly from any Maryland public library and those in the Washington metropolitan area. You may also wish to contact Montgomery College libraries for information on their collections and loan policies.

The following materials cannot be requested through Interlibrary Loan:

• Books on bestseller lists
• Heavily reserved books of the current year
• Books that have not yet been published
• Most reference materials
• Books in heavy classroom demand at local colleges and universities
• Multiple requests for a single title
• Photocopies over 50 pages
• U.S. Census microfilm: You can request this directly from the National Archives Census Microfilm Rental Program.

Contact ILL

Call 240-777-0046, if you need to contact Interlibrary Loan. Have your library card number at hand. Messages are checked twice daily, Monday through Friday, and you will receive a response within two business days. We do not accept ILL item requests by phone. Please contact Ask-a-Librarian or your local branch for item requests. Contact your local branch about overdue issues.

Placing an Interlibrary Loan Request

1. Before starting an ILL request, check our catalog for the item. You can place holds within our catalog for items that are owned by or on order for MCPL but are not currently available.
2. 

   If you don't find the item in our catalog, check Marina, the union catalog of Maryland public libraries. You must have your MCPL library card number to place a request. Magazines or articles may not be requested through Marina. Requests may take 1 to 4 weeks to be filled.

3. If you find the item in Marina, place a request and indicate your pick-up branch. Marina displays a status code for each request, allowing you to follow its progress. You will be notified, by email or by mail, when the item reaches your branch, just as you are for holds on titles MCPL owns.
4. If you don't find the item in Marina, you may want to place a request in OCLC.
5. Until February 2010, MCPL offered access to OCLC’s WorldCat via FirstSearch. This service was paid for by the State of Maryland and has fallen victim to state budget cuts. You can search the web's version of WorldCat, but you cannot place interlibrary loan requests on that site. To request an OCLC interlibrary loan, complete the appropriate form from the list below.
6. OCLC requests can take 8 to10 weeks to fill. You will be notified when the item reaches your branch by mail or by email, just as you are for MCPL-owned holds. We do not accept OCLC requests for items that are available through Marina.