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Interlibrary Loan: Book Requests

Average Turnaround Time for Books

On average, it takes approximately 1.3 days from the time you submit your book request until it is in process.

Processing takes an average of 23 minutes.

Once the request is sent, it takes an average of about 10 days before we receive the book.

Once received, it takes another 2.5 hours on average until you are notified and the book is put on hold for you.

The average turnaround time for a book is 11 days.

 

Book Requests

While we ask that you give as much information about the item as possible, there are only three required fields for submitting a book request.

  1. Author/Editors
  2. Title
  3. Not Wanted After Date

Author/Editors help identify your item, especially if the book title is a common one. Never type "unknown" in this field; ask a reference librarian for help.

The Title of the book should be as accurate as possible. Include any subtitles, edition numbers, or other information which can help identify the exact book you need.

Not Wanted After Date is a field where you can specify the absolute last day this book would be helpful to you. If you have a research paper due on October 30th, for instance, you should put your Not Wanted Date as October 23rd (1 week before) because it will not be helpful to you to receive this book the night before, or even 3 nights before. In most cases, you will receive your book before your wanted date.

The Publisher, Place of Publication, and Date of Publication can be used to specify that you want the 1950 version of the book, for example, rather than the 1980 reprint.

The Edition field can be used to specify that you need the newest edition.

The quickest way to get the item you need is to provide the ISBN. This makes ILL processing faster and ensures accuracy.

Will you accept this item in a language other than English? If you select "Yes," and we find the original article in another language, we will send it to you without asking you first. If you select "No," we will attempt to find the article in English and ask if you will accept it in another language if that is the only article we can find.

Will you accept an alternate edition of this item? If you select "Yes," and we find another edition, we will send it to you without asking you first. If you select "No," and we can only find a different edition, we will ask before sending it to you.

Leave the account number field blank.

The Notes section is where you can give any information that will make your request clearer. You can put, "This book is in Chinese and I read Chinese," or "UIW is supposed to have it, but I can't find it," etc.

Where did you find this item cited? If you used one of our databases, such as Academic Search Complete, or even Amazon, type that in. It will be easier to process your request knowing where you got your information.

Staff LADR