Oh hell yes. Interlibrary Loan (ILL) library service is rarefied, impractical, and very expensive. I know because I used to run ILL service in a major metropolitan public library. The cost you give is in the ballpark. Other, earlier cost studies show it much more expensive, but that included university libraries that can never do anything inexpensively.

The expense of the service lies in the cost of people, there are many hands touching the book. The secondary cost is data systems. Far down the list of expenses, for us anyway, was transportation costs to move the book from one place to another.

A few forward thinking libraries realized that it was often (not always) cheaper to just buy the book, check it out uncataloged, and give it to patrons quickly with the expectation that it would be returned and perhaps entered into the library's collection. Probably some library out there just bought the book and gave it to the patron to keep. But that wouldn't be something we would ever consider because it is difficult to control that kind of service and soon tax dollars would be spent on building private libraries. Keep in mind that is it not only books but dvds, video games, music cds and etc that are requested via ILL.

I often talked with our head honcho about the cost per unit of ILL and we both shook our heads, but did not have the cajones to drop the service. Here in my metropolitan area where there are easily 6 million items available to citizens to check out through library reciprocal programs, and another 8 million items available in large university libraries that they may access within those libraries, and then accessibility to the internet with many ways to find common published items super cheap, ILL service is a dodo bird. This doesnt even consider the incredible richness of digital resources.

Where you are which I think is pretty isolated, it may be a different story. If your ILL requests are often for volumes that complete a series that is useful collection development information. I used to run all ILL requests quickly through our book buyers to be evaluated for purchase rather than borrowing.

I am not a very good gubmnt bureaucrat because I often thought that we didnt really need certain library services. Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec is my hero.