Library

System Holds

Chester County Library System (CCLS) library cardholders may place “holds” at Easttown Library or online for circulating items located in any of the 18 System member libraries. Holds will be delivered for pick-up in the order that they were placed to the System library of the customer’s choice. Customers will be informed of the availability of the item either per email or telephone message depending on the contact information in their record.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

Items not listed in the CCLS catalog may be requested through resource sharing from other libraries in Pennsylvania or throughout the United States through interlibrary loan. ILL is coordinated through the ILL Office at Chester County Library, which processes all ILL requests from System member libraries. Any customer with a valid CCLS library card may submit a request for an out-of-system ILL, however overdue fines on a customer's library record may limit the use of borrowed materials to “in library use only.” The ILL Office seeks to obtain ILL items free of charge. However, some items may only be available with a processing fee. Where fees apply, the ILL transaction will not be completed until the willingness of the customer to pay the fee has been ascertained. All material borrowed from outside of CCLS must be picked up from and returned to the library from which it was requested.

Types of Items Requested Through ILL

The types of items that can be requested include: books; photocopies of journal articles; audiovisual items limited to audio cassettes, audio CDs, videocassettes and DVDs (requested only from Pennsylvania libraries); theses; and dissertations. Software, computer games, and e-books are not requested or lent outside of CCLS. Unless they are in reprint form, items published prior to 1921 may not be requested. Customers should be discouraged from requesting material published within the past 3 to 6 months. Microfilm and microfiche formats may be requested, however items in these formats will be restricted to “in library use only,” and will be held for use only at those System libraries that have the required viewing equipment. Easttown Library does not own the required equipment. Lending libraries occasionally restrict the use of their printed materials to “in library use only.” Arrangements can then be made for the customer to use the material within the requesting library over the period of the loan.