This interconnection is the case in the US as well. It's trivial to get books within the same regional system, and you can do inter library loans for pretty much any other library in the country (though not the Library of Congress, which is the US "library of last resort").

The core "engineer mindset" is solving interesting problems. The core librarian mindset is connecting people with the information they are seeking. That's what drives them.

It's become difficult to get books "valued" at over $1,000, which is basically any out of print book now thanks to Amazon's bogus valuations.

I peeked at your profile and, well, do you know about OhioLINK? I think maybe you're holding it wrong.

The last time I grabbed something rare via OhioLINK it was a twenty year old instructor's manual that accompanies a calculus textbook I own, which they shipped all the way from across the state from some little college's library. It didn't occur to me to calculate the market value of that book. But here's a test...

I see seven copies of Asimov's Annotated Paradise Lost "AVAILABLE" for borrowing and...

Your request for Asimov's annotated Paradise lost. Text by John Milton, notes by Isaac Asimov. was successful.

I fully expect this to go through but I'll make a note here if it doesn't. And hey, you should totally try this yourself, it's an interesting book. (edit: although if we're being honest that's coming from a big Asimov fan, so I'm hopelessly biased. This went out of print after one print run, so it's probably not objectively great.)

Yes, most interlibrary loans are via OhioLINK. I generally can’t get anything that’s valued over $1,000, which is… basically a great deal of out of print books.

Oh wow, I didn’t know about that one. His Shakespeare and Bible books are tons of fun, I’ll have to track that down.

I wish we had this in the U.S.

We've actually had to travel (as in physically drive to D.C.) to the Library of Congress because it was the only place that had a book.