What if Loyola doesn't have online, full text access?
How can Interlibrary Loan (ILL) help with full text access?
If Loyola does not have online, full text access to a known journal article, the patron can be encouraged by reference staff to submit a request through Interlibrary Loan. If the library owns a print version of the article, the ILL department will scan the article and deliver a pdf version to the patron (within the limitations of copyright law). If a print version of the article is not held by Loyola, the ILL staff will request a pdf version from another library; this will typically take about 3 business days.
What can the patron expect after requesting an article via ILL?
An email will be sent to the patron when the item arrives, and articles are typically delivered as pdfs. In the Online Documents section of the user's ILLiad account, click on the Transaction Number, then on View PDF.
ILL Services/Document Delivery
The first step in making an ILL request is logging in to ILLiad. You can find this link on many parts of the library website, including:
- When you log in for the first time, you will be asked to enter some personal account information, including your name and mailing address. All personal information that you share with the library is securely stored and kept private.
- For "Department," choose the option that best matches your major or the university unit that you belong to. If you are unsure which to choose, select "Other."
- For "Delivery Location," choose the library location where you are most likely to pick up materials.
After completing this initial form, you are ready to start making interlibrary loan requests.
There are two methods for requesting a journal article through ILL.
1. Place an article request directly in ILLiad.
Once you have logged into ILLiad, you can choose the option to request a new article. You'll be taken to a form, where you need to fill in citation information about the article, such as title, author, volume, issue, and page numbers. The more information you can include, the more likely you are to receive the article quickly.
2. Request an article through the library catalog or a library database.
If you find an article in the library catalog or a library database, and it's not available online, you can request a copy of the article through interlibrary loan. You can request articles from journals that we have in print (but not online) in our library, or articles from journals that we don't subscribe to in any format.
In the library catalog, you'll see the option to Request Article - Lakeside Campuses. Follow this link to log into ILLiad and have the request form automatically filled out with the citation information.
For articles that you find in an article database, look for the link that says Find Article. This will take you to a page that shows options for print and online access. If the article is not available online, you can choose the link to Request Article - (Lakeside Campuses).
You can use ILLiad to request a chapter of a book or just any range of pages that you need from a book. Please note that this service cannot be used to request a scan of an entire book. In accordance with copyright and fair use guidelines, the standard limit on ILL for book pages is one chapter or approximately 10% of the work.
To request a scan of a book chapter or a selection of pages from a book, you must fill out the Book Chapter form in ILLiad.
Enter as much citation information as possible for the chapter you need, including the chapter title or number, and the page numbers you need. If you don't have this information, you may be able to find it by looking at a preview of the book in Google Books or Amazon. Library staff will do their best to identify the pages you need, but you can speed up your request by supplying whatever information you have.
Another approach is to request the Table of Contents or Index from a book, and then use that material to determine exactly which pages you need.
Interlibrary loan for physical books is available. Interlibrary loan for e-books is typically not an option, as most e-book providers and publishers do not permit ILL between libraries.
Library staff are available to help you get access to books that are not available in our collection. Please contact us to ask for help, or consider some of these options:
- Request scans of a portion of the book using the "book chapter" option. While you can't get a scan of an entire book, library staff will attempt to request as much of a book as possible. Please submit a separate request for each chapter or portion of a book, as we will need to request each chapter from a different library.
- If you're not sure exactly which pages or chapters you need, consider submitting an initial request for the table of contents, index, or introduction first. In the request form, you can simply enter "table of contents" if you don't know the pages.
- Check to see if the book is available in the HathiTrust Digital Library or the Internet Archive.
- Ask the library to purchase a new copy of the book.