The purpose of interlibrary loan is to obtain from other libraries materials not available in the Walton County Public Library System and to provide materials from our collection to other libraries. We do not charge a fee for borrowing materials from other libraries.

To borrow a book or get a photocopy of a newspaper or magazine article, library users should complete an interlibrary loan form at one of the branch libraries.

Normally, a request for an item from another library will be sent to one library at a time until five libraries have been asked or one library has agreed to send the item.

The amount of time it takes to receive a requested item depends on several variables: whether or not the any of the libraries will send the item; if it is the first library asked or the last library sends the item; how long it takes the lending library to process the request; how long it takes the postal service to deliver the item; and once it arrives, how long it takes to deliver the item to the appropriate branch of the Walton County Public Library System. It takes from one to three weeks for an item to be received with the average about eleven days.

Not every request can be filled. We cannot get audio, video or digital format materials. Sometimes the lending libraries will not lend the item requested. Sometimes the only copy of the requested item is held by a library that charges a fee; if the Walton County Public Library System library user does not want to pay the fee we cannot get the item for them.