While the traditional uses of InterLibrary Loan (ILL) can be cumbersome, much of the work is now done electronically. Google and WorldCat can tell patrons which libraries in their areas owns the the titles they want, but they cannot always tell patrons whether there is a copy on the shelf available for loan. Several ILS vendors and OCLC are working on products that use the NCIP standard to allow patrons' local library to communicate with the over-the-county-line library that has a copy of the title they want but which uses a different ILS. This article describes how the NCIP protocol is used to retrieve items for library patrons. It suggests that librarians should acknowledge NCIP as the direction the world is heading and that library staff should understand that patron-initiated ILL is a good thing.