Fees and Charges

For membership fees, consult our Membership page.

Borrow a book

No charge

All books in the NYLI collection, with the exception of some selected rare volumes, can be borrowed for for 7 business days, with options to renew up to two additional 7-business day periods. Overdue fines are calculated at a rate of $1 per item per day.

Replacement Cost

Overdue fines can accumulate for 14 business days. Following this period, you will be requested to return the publication to the library. Failure to do will result in a charge for the full replacement cost of the publication.

Messenger services

Books can be delivered to your office by messenger.

Regular service (within 2 hours)

     Under 15 lbs.
         – Downtown, South of Chambers Street: $10
         – Midtown: $13
     Over 15 lbs. (motor charge): $30

Rush service (within 1 hour):

Add $3 to any above rate

Outside New York City:

Books and other materials can be sent to offices outside New York City via FedEx overnight service. You can provide a FexEx account number to bill to, or will be billed for the shipment cost.

Document delivery services

E-mail/Fax service:

$1.50 per page
Limit of $25 per document if available electronically

Photocopy service:

$0.50 per page

Photocopies/print charges (self-service):

$0.35 per page

External sources - ILL/document retrieval services

NYLI has extensive contacts with other libraries, commercial document delivery services, and specialized research companies. Our staff, in consultation with our patrons, are able to initiate inter-library loans and request documents held at other libraries and archives on behalf of Institute members. The patron will be billed for any inter-library loan charges or document retrieval fees charged by the third party. Research charges will be billed when applicable, as specified plus research fees when applicable, as specified in the Research services policy.                                              

Research services

 $80 per hour, billed in 15-minute increments

Research services policy

Our research services fee is applied only to requests that require the research skills of our professional librarians. Examples include compiling legislative histories; locating documents that are not held in our collection and complex reference queries that result in a specific work product.

Research services fees will not be applied to requests of a clerical nature, such as photocopying, or retrieving known items NYLI’s physical collection, the databases the Institute subscribes to, or another library.