The John W. Anderson Library provides interlibrary loan service through the online ILLiad system. Create an ILLiad account to get started. More information on using ILLiad is available on our ILLiad guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
IU Northwest offers full interlibrary loan (ILL) privileges to all students, staff, and faculty of IU Northwest. We also offer ILL privileges, on a limited basis, to IU alumni and community members.
ILL service is governed by the Interlibrary Loan Code of the American Library Association, the policies of the lending libraries, and federal copyright law (U.S. Code Title 17).
More information can be found through the tabs below.
When IUN does not own a particular book or journal article, we may be able to borrow the material from another IU library, another library in the state, in the country, or somewhere in the world. This service is carried out by the library's System Services department.
Current students, staff, and faculty of IUN.
Students from other IU campuses.
Any IU alumni or community member, with the following limitation:
You may be limited to only three article requests at one time.
IU alumni and community members can use IU Northwest materials including books, but these do not involve the interlibrary loan office.
You can get almost anything you need or want through ILL. Examples include: books, videos, journal articles, newspaper articles, dissertations, and more.
Community members are limited to article requests.
There is no set answer for this. As a general rule of thumb, you probably cannot borrow books held only in Rare Books collections. Most libraries will not lend current best-sellers or new textbooks. You usually cannot borrow an entire issue of a journal, or an entire volume of a journal. It's usually difficult to get reference books. While we will try and get you whatever you need, ultimately we can only borrow what some other library is willing to loan.
Community members are limited to article (photocopy) requests and cannot obtain any other formats through interlibrary loan, including books.
On average, it takes 5-10 days for books and articles to come to IUN. The material is delivered by UPS or Info Express.
It may take longer if the material comes from another state or from outside the IU system.
System Services will contact you by telephone, mail or E-mail when your material arrives.
An ILL request may be cancelled or delayed when:
No library is willing to supply the material.
No library owns the material.
The material is in especially high demand, such as current best-sellers or new textbooks.
The request has to go to many libraries before one agrees to supply the item.
The material is especially rare -a historic document or a dissertation.
The material is published and primarily held in foreign countries.
Your request contained incorrect information. Without accurate author, title, date, and publisher information it is frequently impossible to fill a request.
You requested material already available at IUN. If we verify that such material is actually on our shelves, your request will be cancelled.
The best way to check the status of your ILL request is to log into your ILLiad account. Once logged in, you can see the status of pending requests on the main page, and click on the Transaction number for more details. The options under the View section can be used to look at requests that are no longer pending.
On weekdays, you can call the System Services office 980-6932.
In the evenings and on weekends, you can call the Circulation Desk at 980-6585 to check if your book request(s) are available.
The loan period for ILL varies; loans are set by the policies of the lending libraries.
The due date is indicated on the circulation slip in the book. While renewals are possible, they are at the discretion of the lending library. You should call the office at 980-6932 to request renewals.
Because our ability to borrow depends on the goodwill of other libraries, the due dates must be honored. Repeated disregard for due dates can result in the suspension of your borrowing privileges.
If a book is damaged while checked out to you, you will be held responsible and may be charged for replacement.
The IUN Library is bound by any restriction on use imposed by the lending library. Some libraries require that the materials they lend be used in the borrowing library only. Some do not allow photocopying. Some require the signature of readers of unpublished dissertations. The borrower should not let others use the books he/she secures on loan unless special arrangements have been made.
Before requesting a book, check IUCAT to make sure that IUN does not own the item.
Fill out an ILL Book Request on ILLiad. Make sure you include complete and accurate information such as author, title, publisher, and date.
Then hit submit button once the request is filled out.
You will be notified by telephone or mail when each item arrives.
Before requesting an article, check IUCAT to make sure that IUN does not own the journal and date that you want.
Fill out an Article Request on ILLiad. Make sure you include complete and accurate information. Complete information means:
Journal/magazine name
Volume and issue number
Date of article
Page number(s)
Complete title of the article
Author's name
The source of your information. This speeds up the verification process.
Read the Copyright Notice.
You will be notified by telephone or mail when each item arrives.
Books are held at the Circulation Desk. Articles are delivered electronically via ILLiad.
While we do everything we can to get materials as soon as possible, there isn't much we can do to go below the 5-10 day period. If you need something faster than that, there are a couple of things you can do if you need material that we don't own. You can locate the material at other libraries in the region by using WorldCat Local or WorldCat. If a library in the region owns what you need, you can go directly to them for the material. You may be able to borrow the material from them or use it on their premises.
If you have difficulty with this process, contact the reference librarian in the library, at 219-980-6582 or through Ask a Librarian for assistance.
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