What is Interlibrary Loan?
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a cooperative effort among libraries to share resources. The Library and Media Services’ ILL service will borrow materials from other library collections for use by Western students, faculty and staff. Books and photocopies of journal articles are most often requested, but some libraries loan other materials such as maps, dissertations, videos and microforms. The supplying of photocopied material is in accordance with copyright guidelines. ILL also loans Library and Media Services’ materials to other libraries (see Lending to Other Institutions).

Who may borrow materials?
Members of the Western Oregon University community who may borrow via ILL:

• Faculty members
• Emeritus faculty
• All registered Western students including:
  • Students in off campus programs
  • Students pre-registered for next term
• Staff members
• Teaching Research faculty and staff

The following categories of library users should use their public library to request ILL materials:

• Patrons with guest card status
• Spouses and family members of students, staff and faculty
• Elderhostel participants

Why do I have to use my WOU email address?
There are two reasons:
First, our software requires it. In order to provide you with services such as tracking the status of your requests and the ability to download the articles online in addition to sending them as an email attachment we need to be able to link your email address with your WOU student account.
In addition, we need to ensure that we are protecting your privacy. Since we have no way of verifying that an email address not issued by the university actually belongs to the person listed on the request form, we could potentially send information about the library materials you are requesting to someone other than yourself if we sent correspondence to a non-WOU email address.
If you are concerned about the amount of email you receive in your WOU email account, consider setting you “all students” or “all faculty/staff” email to a digest form so that you only receive one message daily with all of the content from those lists. Instructions to set the digest mode can be found here.

What materials are available?
Requests may be submitted for most types of library material. However, the most readily obtainable materials are:

• Books — those published after 1800
• Journal articles — entire issues of journals are usually not available on loan, but a photocopy of specific article may be obtained unless there are copyright restrictions.
• Master theses and doctoral dissertations — usually available for loan in the original or in microform. If not available for loan through ILL, the library may be able purchase dissertations for patrons. (The cost of a dissertation is approximately $28.00 for an unbound paper copy.)
• Newspapers — usually available on loan only if on microfilm.

What materials are usually not available?
There are some materials that ILL staff normally will not try to obtain, in accordance with local and national ILL protocols:

• Materials owned by Library and Media Services, unless declared missing or at the bindery
• Materials for use as course reserves, or other group use
• Manuscript materials
• Reference materials
• Records and compact disks
• Books published before 1800

How long will it take?
Materials accurately cited and easily located will often arrive in seven to ten days. Materials that are difficult to locate or are inaccurately or incompletely cited take more time. Patrons should discuss their time constraints with ILL staff members and note any deadlines.

What will it cost?
Hamersly Library does not charge for IILL services and will make every effort to borrow from institutions who do not charge for lending their materials. However, some requests for rare materials, theses, or dissertations may incur fees. You will be notified before incurring any fees.

How do I borrow materials?
First, make sure that the needed material is not owned by Library and Media Services and that books are not available through Summit. Log in above to request items not available through these sources.

How will I be notified when the material arrives?
Patrons will be notified by email when items arrive. If you have signed up for text notifications in Primo, you will receive a text when books or audiovisual materials arrive. Books and audiovisual materials need to be picked up at the Checkout Desk. Articles will be sent as email attachments and available online.

Where may I use borrowed materials?
Conditions of use are set by the lending library and must be observed by each borrower so as not to jeopardize borrowing privileges for the entire Western Oregon University. These include:

• Length of loan
• Special restrictions, such as:
  • In Library Use Only
  • Photocopying Not Allowed
  • No Renewal

All borrowed books must be returned directly to the Hamersly Library Checkout Desk to have material cleared from your circulation record quickly. Do not remove the bookband/ sticker. Removal may cause problems resulting in lost books and overdue fines.

How long may I use the material?
Photocopies or electronic copies of articles are yours to keep; they do not need to be returned. Books, videos, cds, microforms, and other materials are due at a time established by the lending library. Times vary from library to library. Always check the bookband for the date the book is due in Hamersly Library. Generally a renewal request can be made for additional time, unless the lending institution has place a no-renewal restriction on the material.

How do I ask for renewal?
Look at the bookband to see if a renewal request can be made. If a renewal is permitted,

• Log in and use the link below the item you would like to renew.
• Request renewal by email (ilibloan@wou.edu). Make sure to give us your full name and the title of the book your are renewing, and the control # at the bottom of the bookband.
• Call the Interlibrary Loan Department at 503-838-8884.

Borrowers are allowed to retain the book for one week after due date pending approval or disapproval from the lending library. If approved, borrowers are notified of the new due date via email. Renewal requests are not possible if the book has become overdue and only one renewal of interlibrary loan material is allowed by most libraries.

What if ILL material is overdue?
ILL material that is overdue accrues charges if not returned by the due date. Overdue charges are $1.00 per day.

I submitted more requests than I see in my account. Where are the other requests?

Book and video requests may actually have been made in Summit. You can view these requests when you log in above, though they will be on a separate screen.

If your requests are not Summit requests, we may not have processed them yet. We process requests as soon as we can. If your item is difficult to find, it may take a day or more for the request to appear. Requests are also not updated over the weekend.

How do I know when my ILL items are available?

For all requests, patrons will receive an email notice via their WOU Email address that their ILL item(s) is available as soon as processing is complete. Checking your email account is the quickest way to find out.

You may also login and check the status of your requested items.

My article disappeared from my list of available articles. What happened?

Due to copyright restrictions and server space, articles are only kept available to patrons for 14 days. After that time, the article will be deleted from the server.

Why are some requests displayed more than once?
We ask up to 5 libraries to supply each request. If those 5 libraries cannot send the item, we send a new request to 5 more. Each try displays as a separate request.

My ILL request was unfilled – what does that mean? If 10 libraries fail to supply the item, we consider the request “unfilled.”

I see logout links on all pages. Is this important?

Yes! Logging out of your ILL Patron Access account insures that someone else cannot access your account later. This is especially important if you are using a public terminal. While your session will timeout on its own, logging out is the safest way to ensure the privacy of your information.

Some of the above content is modified from pages at Keene State College and Winthrop University

Information for borrowing institutions