(no subject)

[conuly]

Anybody able to recommend a library or ten that allows for nonresident digital cards?

There’s a series I was reading, and the three libraries in NYC have books 1 - 4 and then 9 - 11. I don’t like it enough to pay for just the missing books. I still want to read them. More library systems, that I would pay for. (And hopefully get these books.)

Comments

[darkoshi]

This is our local library system; it sounds like any nonresident can get a card for $65/year but you could ask to be sure it includes out of state people. You can search the eBooks on their site to see if they have what you're looking for.
https://www.richlandlibrary.com/librarycard

[moxie_man]

NY doesn't have an inter-library exchange/loan system? Here in Maine, most libraries across the state participate in such a system. If your local library doesn't have a book you wish to borrow, but a library on the other side of the state does, they'll ship it to your local library for you to borrow.

[magid]

^ This. I’m in MA, and if my local system doesn’t have it, I can look on a different site (same library log-in, though) for a much wider net that usually has what I’m looking for unless it’s very niche (or only in a non-dead-tree format….).

[conuly]

Of course they do, but I really prefer not to trust myself to return books. Digital books self-return.

[conuly]

Yeah, but I only want ebooks….

[magid]

I don’t think that makes a difference for interlibrary loan? When I’ve looked for titles, they had ebook and deadtree editions available.

[melannen]

It looks like *some* libraries in New York State allow any resident of the state to get a card? Unfortunately I don't know if there's an easy listing anywhere. I tried a few at random and it looks like Albany doesn't but Buffalo does. But might be worth poking around some more.

[thewayne]

I run ILL at my local university. For the most part, the contracts that regulate ebooks don't allow you to lend them via ILL, when someone asks me to try and borrow an ebook for them I tell them no because almost all libraries have what's called an autodeflect for the request. There's a lot of suck from the administration side of ebooks, for example, in some instances the books have a fixed life and can only be lent X times and then they vanish from the system and have to be repurchased.

[thewayne]

Sometimes county libraries are also friendly. And some universities have local patron cards for small fees, I work at a university and we'll issue them to anybody for $10 per semester and it gives them borrowing privileges but not interlibrary loan. Of course, we have a lot less fiction than public libraries.

[movingfinger]

(I assume you have put in a purchase request for the missing books? Sometimes librarians nod and miss all of a series and they may be able to fill the gaps.)

That said, Orange County, Florida, gives nonresident access for $125 a year. Fairfax County in Virginia offers it for $50 a year. St. Louis gives access to nonresidents who donate to their Friends of the Library. Buffalo gives free cards (renew yearly) to nonresidents who can prove they live in NY State.

I used to do community access to the local university system's libraries for borrowing, but the holdings weren't heavy on the general fiction kinds of things that Libby offers. No idea whether that has changed---you can probably access SUNY's catalog and check whether it's going to have things you want.

[melannen]

Yeah, both of the examples I listed are actually county systems, they were just the first two places in New York State I could think of! I live in a state with a statewide agreement that anybody can get a card anywhere, but it looks like New York is more patchwork (and a lot of the counties are coasting on anyone being able to get an NYC card, which doesn't help if NYC is the system that doesn't have the thing...)

It's also possible though that the in-between books just don't have library ebooks available. Some publishers are very useless about that, they put new books in the system and they dumped a bunch of older backlist in at some point and they don't care about the stuff in the middle.

[magid]

Clearly, I haven’t been paying enough attention. Thank you for explaining!

[thewayne]

It's ridiculously complex. :-)  I've learned a lot working here.

[ethelmay]

On my library's Libby system I can mark a title that's on Overdrive "Notify Me," which basically says IF you get a copy let me know. They've bought a number of things I have tagged - possibly because multiple people asked, dunno. They also have a formal purchase request system that's separate.