How to design a lab: Part 5 of a series of posts

"As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school.  I actually believed all those books belonged to her." -- Erma Bombeck, American humorist and columnist, 1927-1996

A final step you might consider before committing cash money to buy a book is to borrow it from a library that owns it, and then reading it to see whether a purchase makes sense for your organization.

There are several steps to the process of borrowing a book …
Find out which libraries own the title
Borrow the book, if you have borrowing privileges with the identified library, OR, failing this …
Submit an ILL-Interlibrary Loan request to borrow the book via a library with which you do have borrowing privileges

TIP #1: Search the title of interest on WorldCat to identify libraries that own the book.  You can search WorldCat directly (www.worldcat.org ) or you can Google® as in the following example …

Google Search String: worldcat Laboratory Design Handbook crawley cooper

On the resulting WorldCat screen, click on the title’s hyperlink.  Then click on the hyperlink labeled Borrow/Obtain a copy, located in the bottom right corner. This will bring up a list of libraries that own the book, beginning with those located nearest to you.  For example, since I am Houston based, one of the libraries on the list is the University of St. Thomas.  Another is Rice University.

Since I do not have borrowing privileges at either library, my next move is to contact Houston Public Library (HPL), where I do have borrowing privileges.  While HPL does not own the book, I can initiate an Interlibrary Loan request, whereby HPL requests the book on my behalf. Once HPL identifies a library willing to lend the book, HPL will contact me.  I will then have, typically, two weeks to examine the book, enough time to determine whether to purchase it.

TIP #2: Contact your friendly librarian to initiate an Interlibrary Loan request.

The librarian may be at your public library, or, if you are affiliated with an academic institution, you can contact the librarian at that institution.