INTERLIBRARY LOAN

What is Interlibrary Loan (ILL)?

Who May Use Interlibrary Loan Services?

How to Submit an Interlibrary Loan Request

Materials Usually Not Available through Interlibrary Loan

Turnaround Time

Receipt and Use of Borrowed Materials

Copyright Compliance

Copyright Notice

Payments

Alternatives to Interlibrary Loan

What is Interlibrary Loan (ILL)?

Interlibrary loan is a cooperative system whereby thousands of libraries network to share their resources.  When items needed for teaching, learning, and research are not available within Lewis Library’s extensive collections, the Interlibrary Loan staff will work to obtain them for you from other libraries located throughout North America.  Copies of journal articles and book chapters become the property of the requestor; books and other original materials are returned to the lending library after a short period of use.

Who may use Interlibrary Loan Services?

Interlibrary loan service is available to faculty, students, and staff of the Health Science Center, as well as to Lewis Library card holders and clients of Biomedical Information Services. 

Requests placed for items currently available in the Lewis Library will not be filled by Interlibrary Loan.  Contact the Reference Office (817-735-2070) or the Circulation Desk (817-735-2465) if you need assistance checking holdings.   If an item is currently checked out or missing, please note this on your request. 

Also note that, for owned items that are checked out, placing a hold request for the library’s copy may get faster results than Interlibrary Loan.  Contact the Circulation Desk for assistance with hold requests.

How to Submit an Interlibrary Loan Request

Requests can be submitted using any of the following methods:

• Complete a request form, available at the Circulation Desk and on the library website at http://library.hsc.unt.edu/forms/phtcpyreq.cfm.   

• Through a Loansome Doc account, after you have identified articles in PubMed.  If you order journal articles frequently, you will find this much more efficient than using the library’s form.  Your contact information and preferences will be stored in the system, and you will be able to track the progress of your orders online.  To establish an account at the Lewis Library, please download, complete, and return the Loansome Doc form found on the library website at http://library.hsc.unt.edu/forms/index.cfm.

• Through OCLC’s WorldCat database, which is available to UNTHSC patrons on the All Databases page.  If an item you find there is not in Lewis Library’s holdings, you will see an ILL button at the top of the OCLC record page.  Click the button, then complete and submit the online form.  It will be routed to the Interlibrary Loan Department for processing, with the necessary information about the item added automatically.

If you are requesting rush processing, please note this on the request form and follow up with a phone call or a fax.

Materials Usually Not Available through Interlibrary Loan

• Audiovisual materials
• Textbooks
• Recently published or high-use materials 
• Non-circulating materials such as reference books, bound periodicals, and complete issues of periodicals
• Rare or archival items, such as manuscripts
• Dissertations and theses.  Even if the owning library will not lend them, however, they can usually provide a copy of a chapter, the table of contents, and/or the bibliography.  Complete copies of dissertations and theses can be ordered online from Dissertation Express.

Turnaround Time

Because we normally have no control over which library will respond to a given request, it is not possible to know exactly how long it will take.  Turnaround times depend on availability of the requested item, the location of the supplying library, and the speed with which that library processes the request.  Here is typically what you can expect:

• Articles and chapters that can be delivered electronically are usually available within 1-4 days. 
• Books and other items are usually shipped "Library Rate," which can take up to two weeks to arrive.

Please note:  many academic libraries suspend interlibrary loan services during their holiday break.  Therefore, processing of any requests submitted in December may be delayed.   

For large projects, it is helpful if you submit your interlibrary loan requests over a period of several days or weeks rather than all at one time.  Depending on workload, processing of your requests may be limited to 10 per day.

If there is an urgent need for a document, such as a clinical emergency, the Interlibrary Loan staff can request “rush” service from another library.  There is no added service charge for UNTHSC patrons, but ILL service will be suspended if the rush status is abused.  If you are requesting express mail service, you will need to provide an account number or pay the library for the shipping cost.

Receipt and Use of Borrowed Materials

• When requested items arrive, you will be notified by e-mail.  If rush processing was requested, you will also be notified by phone or pager.

• For items in print and media formats, pick-up is at the Circulation Desk.  They will be held under your name.

• If e-mail delivery is requested and available for the item, it will be sent to the e-mail address submitted on the request form.  All electronic items are delivered in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format.  The Acrobat reader is available as a free download at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.

• Books will have a paper band attached to the cover showing the name of the requestor, the due date, and any special restrictions placed on the book's use by the lending library.  Please abide by any restrictions and do not remove the band—it is needed to complete the loan transaction. 

• The loan period for books and media is set by the lending library and can range from one week to one month. 

• Renewals are at the discretion of the lending library, and renewal may be requested only once.  To request a renewal, contact the ILL office at least 3 days before the item is due.  Though borrowed materials will appear on your account page in the online catalog, online renewal is not available there. 

• Due dates must be observed and all borrowed materials handled with care.  Items borrowed through ILL are the patron's responsibility, and replacement costs will be charged for any items not returned.  Overdue fines are charged at the rate of $1 per day, and any charges incurred for damage to an item will be passed through to the requestor.

• Please return all books and media to the Circulation Desk; do not use the outside book drop or campus mail for interlibrary loans.  If necessary, patrons who live outside the local area may ship items to be returned.  Ship them to the Lewis Library Interlibrary Loan office at the address above—not to the owning library.  You will be responsible for any damage or loss that may occur during this shipment.

Copyright Compliance

Copyright guidelines for interlibrary loan limit libraries to five copies “borrowed” per calendar year from any single periodical title; beyond that, publisher permission is required.  However, this applies only to articles published in the past five years—not to older articles.  Also, under Fair Use guidelines a library may copy only one article per issue in response to a request.  If your request would cause these limits to be exceeded, the library staff will notify you of the item’s availability status and the amount of any royalty fee that will be required to obtain it.

Copyright Notice

The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code), governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research."  If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order, if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law.

Payments

• Interdepartmental charges are reported monthly during the first week of the following month.  Departments have until the 15th of the month to request account code changes.  Charges are posted between the 15th and the end of the month.

• Unless a UNTHSC account number has been provided, students, faculty, and staff are billed for ILL services at the time of delivery.  Clients of Biomedical Information Services are billed monthly or at the time of delivery, depending on their needs.

• At the Lewis Library Circulation Desk, payments for interlibrary loans can be made by cash, check, money order, MasterCard, VISA, or Discover.  Alternatively, a check or money order can be mailed.  Please provide a copy of the invoice with your payment or write the invoice number on your check.

Alternatives to Interlibrary Loan

TexShare

Through the TexShare Card Program, UNTHSC faculty, students, and staff members can create an account and gain borrowing privileges at participating academic and public libraries throughout the state.  The first step is to request a TexShare card from the Lewis Library Circulation department.  Cards are issued between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, and they are valid until the end of the academic term. 

Document Delivery Services

If time does not permit you to use Interlibrary Loan services, you may want to consider a commercial document delivery service.  These businesses have the capability to fill orders for articles quickly and to deliver either electronically or through an express mail service.  Copyright royalty fees are typically included in the charges, and advance payment by credit card is usually required.  DocDel.net is a useful source for finding a provider that can meet your needs.  

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