Reply #17: Your local public library will have them or else ILL (interlibrary loan)

[nealmhughes]

them from a larger to you. It is a free service, unless it is not held in the area in which your local is part of a consortium. The odds are that the local academic library has them and if you are an alumna or alumnus, the lending card rate is quite cheap or else you can usually get borrowing privledges at a nominal fee if not even an alum.

If the book is coming from outside the consortium area, then there might be a nominal postage fee of say, $5 for two-way postage. Your local librarian will bill you and then he or she will pay the bill that the owner sends to them for the ILL.

Of course, many public libraries use book buying services that try to keep a wide range of popular reading materials in stock, but they may only update a few times a year, as library budgets are tighter than imaginable. Making friends with whomever does collection development is a great idea! They actually halfway "guess" at what patrons want... after reading the reviews and other formulae and of course, the aforementioned buying companies.

Just remember, we librarians know everything except how to dress.

Neal M. Hughes, MLIS