The ILC provides for a variety of readers within each language group. For example, books are purchased in Spanish from Mexico, Spain, South and Central American countries and from Florida. Native authors of each country are purchased whenever possible. The International Language Collection provides adult and juvenile recreational reading materials, as well as assistance with dictionaries and miscellaneous reference tools. Declared a state resource in 1976, all public libraries in Michigan may borrow an ILC deposit collection of books for a minimal membership fee.
Collections rotate every six months.
Any Michigan resident may apply for a library card to use the collection. All books and tapes are on LUIS, transliterated where necessary. A major source of geographic and cartographic information, the Map Collection contains well over 150,000 sheet maps and thousands of thematic and national atlases, making it the second largest map collection in a public library in the United States. Although the collection is universal and even extraterrestrial in content, there is much emphasis on maps of Detroit and Michigan. Included in the Map Collection are world maps, satellite-imagery maps, maps of virtually every country and area of the earth, maps of most Michigan lakes and Sanborn fire insurance maps for Detroit and other Michigan cities.