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The Interlibrary Loan Service, officially the German Interlibrary Loan is an organization of cooperating libraries in the Federal Republic of Germany who mutually borrow and loan library materials. The service is based on mutual exchange, i.e. libraries take part actively by lending their own library materials to other libraries and passively by borrowing library materials from other libraries for their patrons. Interlibrary loan policies, set up in the Interlibrary Loan Code, must be observed by the participating libraries. In contrast to commercial document delivery services, the interlibrary loan service is less cost effective. Borrowing libraries charge a processing fee for each interlibrary loan request, regardless of whether or not the request can be filled. The participating libraries mutually reimburse each other for their services.
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