Suggesting and Requesting Materials

Our catalogue contains materials from Regina Public Library and most other public libraries in Saskatchewan. Regina customers can place holds on materials and most can be provided to you from elsewhere in the province. 

If it is not in our catalogue, you can suggest a title for us to purchase, and we will consider it.

To request an item you may:

Thank you for your interest in helping us grow our collections. Please note that because of the high volume of requests we receive, you will not be notified if we are unable to fill your request.

Questions? Email us.

See Author Submissions for more information on how authors and publishers can submit additions to the collection.

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Suggesting Materials for Purchase

You’ll need a Regina Public Library card and a PIN (personal identification number) to request a title through interlibrary loan or suggest a title for purchase. Your library account must be in good standing (owing less than $25).

You can submit up to 10 purchase and/or interlibrary loan requests per month.

  • RPL will consider purchasing suggested materials that fit into our Collections Policy.
  • Authors, titles, or subjects of interest to you that would also be of interest to others; and/or
  • Items of local interest, relating to the geographic area of Regina or Saskatchewan.

Requests that do not meet these criteria will automatically be rejected. 

  • Items already available in the province-wide library catalogue
  • Current popular titles from best-selling authors. We order these anyway. Check the library catalogue periodically to see if it’s there
  • Textbooks
  • Titles that are not yet available (in pre-publication or currently in theatres)
  • Titles older than seven years from date of production, or those that are no longer available (out of print). For older items, we will try to find a copy for you using interlibrary loan.

We’ll send an automatic email to let you know we’ve received your suggestion. If items are approved for purchase or sent to interlibrary loan, a hold will be placed for you and you will receive a notification when it is available. Our staff are unable to track the status of your suggestion so please don’t inquire after your submission. 

Because of the high volume of requests we receive, you will not be notified if we are unable to fill your request.

ebooks and eaudiobooks

Please note that RPL can only provide access to eBooks that are available through our eBook vendors, so we are unable to add eBooks from other parties to our collection.

If you want an eBook or eAudiobook, use the “Notify Me” feature in the Libby App.

Digital Services

Do you live or pay taxes in the city of Regina? If not, you should be using the digital services found on your home library system's website. Access to many digital services is not shared between different library systems around the province of Saskatchewan.

You can switch to your home library system's website or you can contact us by email or by calling 306-777-6000.

Interlibrary Loan

An interlibrary loan is how we connect you with materials from libraries outside of Saskatchewan. If we determine that your request doesn't meet our Collection Policy, we will attempt to borrow the material from another Canadian library.

Turnaround times and loan periods vary depending on the lending library. Please submit your request with accurate information and as much detail as possible as that will speed up the process. You will be notified when your requested item is available for pick-up. 

  • Picking up interlibrary loans:
    • You can pick up and return interlibrary loan items at any RPL location.
  • Renewing interlibrary loans:
    • Renewals are up to the lending library. Please contact library staff if you wish to renew your interlibrary loan. Renewals must be requested at least two days before the item is due back.
  • Returning interlibrary loans:
    • You can return your item to any Saskatchewan public library. Your library account will be billed for the replacement cost of the unreturned item. If you return the item in good condition the replacement cost will be removed from your account.

Interlibrary loan is primarily used for books, magazine articles, and back issues of newspapers on microfilm. The following things are not available through interlibrary loan:

  • Items available or on-order in our catalogue, including musical instruments
  • Books published in the current or previous calendar year
  • DVDs, videos, audiobooks, CDs, and other audio-visual and multimedia items
  • Whole issues of magazines
  • Items that are not available in Canadian libraries

You can submit up to 10 purchase and/or interlibrary loan requests per month.

We’ll make every attempt to fulfill your requests, but we can’t guarantee that each attempt will be successful. If a title has already been submitted and gone through the request process once, and has been deemed unsuitable for our collection, or isn’t available through interlibrary loan, it won’t be considered again — even if it’s been submitted several times.

Magazine articles

  • You can request photocopies of magazine articles through interlibrary loan. Please search for the title of the magazine or journal in our E-Journal Portal before submitting your request — we might already have digital access to the article you’re looking for.
  • If you still can't find what you are looking for, feel free to submit a request. Keep in mind that our article-sharing partners are Canadian academic and special libraries, so they’ll have access to academic journals, not popular magazines.
  • Digital copies are provided in PDF format, free of charge. Print copies will be subject to our usual charges for printing.

Microfilm:

  • You can select Microform as the format of the item and then fill an as much information as you can.
  • Please note that microfilms will only be sent to RPL’s Central Library, where our microfilm readers and printers are kept. 
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