By Michelle Metcalf

NOPL Communications Director

This article is the first in a series titled “My library card gives me…”

Libraries don’t want all the great services, resources and events they have to be a secret. This series will help shed a little light on all the wonderful benefits of having a library card and show why it really is the best card in your wallet.

Walk into just about any library and you’ll find more books than you could possibly read in a lifetime. The variety can be overwhelming — until you’re looking for something specific, and you find that despite the thousands of books on the shelf, the library doesn’t have the one title you want!

But when you have a library card in Onondaga County, you have access to every book at every library in the county. You can use the library’s online catalog from the comfort of your own home or while on the go to search all of these locations at once to locate that specific title you had in mind. The best part is that the library even has its own delivery system, so once you find the item you’re looking for in the catalog you can place it on hold and request it to be sent to a library that’s convenient for you to pick it up at.

Every once in a while, that one title you’re looking for isn’t available anywhere in the county. But all hope isn’t lost! The library offers a service called interlibrary loan to borrow items from other libraries outside the county — and sometimes even outside the state.

Interlibrary loan can be used to request books, copies of articles, and even media like CDs and DVD — and there isn’t any fee to use the service. You can speak with any librarian and they will help you determine if the item you’re looking for qualifies for interlibrary loan and help to answer any questions you have about the service.