What is ILL?

ILL is an acronym for Interlibrary Loan. OK, so the next question becomes - What is Interlibrary Loan? In short, an interlibrary loan is a request from Library A to Library B to borrow some material that Library B has which Library A does not have. Libraries rarely work independent of one another, but are part of consortiums or library councils with reciprocal agreements which enable interlibrary loans to occur.

Say you're working on a research paper, and you are looking for an obscure book that the library doesn't have. If you stop by the Reference desk with the title of the book (and as much publication information that you might have about the book), we can supply you with the form needed to submit an ILL request. Once the request is made, it is sent to Technical Processing for research and review. Often Reference can verify that the book is available through a local resource. From there it takes about 1 - 2 weeks for your title to come into the library.

The same applies for requested articles. If our databases don't have what you are looking for, we should be able to find it for you at some other location.

Guidelines for ILL are supplied through the American Library Association (ALA). For the most part, ILLs are FREE! (In rare cases, there may be a small charge levied by the lending library to cover their expense). Different libraries allow different media to be lended, subject to their ILL policies.

Interlibrary loan through DCC is available to current faculty, staff and students.