Witherle Memorial Library, along with all of the other libraries in the state library system, will temporarily suspend Inter-library Loan services due to ongoing legal issues over the contract for the statewide delivery of ILL books. That suspension begins today, June 4, 2024, and will continue until the legal issues are resolved.

Patrons will still be able to place requests for books in their home libraries, but will not have access to books from other libraries around the state. 

This unfortunate development will affect the way we do business, and, more importantly, it will limit your ability to get the books you want to read. Be sure that we at Witherle will do our best to ensure you have access to all the resources here at your local library. We also will investigate other options to help meet your reading needs. 

The suspension of this service stems from the required competitive Request for Proposals for the contract to deliver the ILL books statewide. Through this process, the state awarded the contract to a new company and one of the unsuccessful bidders has appealed that decision. We expect the appeal to take many weeks and the ILL suspension to last well into summer.

Requests that are already in the system will continue to be delivered until July 1, but libraries will no longer process new requests. We’re also encouraging patrons to return any ILL books they have out as soon as they are done reading them, so we can return them to their home libraries.

If you would like more details regarding this, the state has provided a link to a FAQ that further explains this situation: Van Delivery FAQ. Likewise, if you have any questions, you can contact the Witherle Library at 326-4375.