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Interlibrary Loan - Borrowing

Interlibrary Loan provides a means of expanding the library's resources for PSU faculty, staff and students as well as community patrons by obtaining materials from other libraries. This is primarily a free service and is available to all patrons with valid library borrowing privileges. Materials owned by the Axe Library or one of the consortium libraries are not requested on ILL. These requests are referred to the Circulation department and a hold or recall is placed on the item.

On average, it takes at least 7-10 days to fill an ILL request. Usually there is no charge to the patron for borrowed items, although the nationwide average cost to get a book to another library and back is almost thirty dollars if you consider employee salary, shipping fees, hardware and software expenses, etc.

Photocopies of journal articles are usually free if they can be obtained in Kansas and there are several out of state libraries that supply free photocopies. Your items are not requested if we cannot locate libraries that copy at no charge.

Textbooks for current PSU courses are not requested on Interlibrary Loan, the University Bookstore will provide those items. Unless special circumstances exist, items such as reference books, audio visual or other 'special item' materials are not requested on ILL.

Patrons who need renewals on books obtained through Interlibrary Loan are asked to request the renewal at least three working days ahead of the original due date. We do not ask for renewals on overdue items and only one renewal is asked for. A renewed book, including mail time, could be away from the owning library for two months or more. If the patron needs it for a longer period of time, a second request should be submitted and the item will be obtained from another library.

Patrons who keep items past the due date may be notified by e-mail, however, the due date is written on a paper band affixed to the front of each item. Fines are fifty cents per day for the first and second day the item is overdue. A one dollar per day charge takes effect on the third day after the due date.

Charges for lost or damage items obtained on ILL will be set as designated by the owning library. Other, local charges may also apply. The Interlibrary Loan Department reserves the right to suspend ILL privileges and place holds on academic records until all charges have been paid.

Types of materials available on ILL are, among others:

• Books
• Photocopied articles
• Government documents
• Census microfilm
• Theses and dissertations - Many theses and dissertations may be borrowed, most libraries will loan them if they have more than one copy. Since these items are usually owned only at one library (of the institution where they were written), there is a higher possibility of a lending charge. We may also purchase the majority of dissertations through Proquest's Dissertation Express. You may purchase them directly online using a credit card, or we would be happy to order them for you. The copy is delivered by express mail and are usually received within three or four working days.

Borrowing links of interest

How PSU patrons may submit Interlibrary Loan requests via one of our online request systems.

Check our patron status page to find out what department categories you need to select on our online forms.

Borrowing FAQ for PSU patrons.

• Other Libraries:
  • Blue Skyways
  • Library of Congress
  • British Library
  • LibDex, the Library Index. A worldwide directory of library homepages, OPAC's, and Friends pages
• BCR:
  • Resource Sharing
  • Site Map

• OCLC:
  • OCLC's Interlibrary Loan Reference Card (for borrowers and lenders)
  • Participating Institutions search
  • OCLC Technical Bulletins
  • OCLC Advanced Search page
  • OCLC Site Map
  • Watch WorldCat Grow - A new record is added to WorldCat every 12 seconds... take a look!
• Custom Holdings instructions
  • Custom holdings search
  • Custom holdings lists
• ILLiad

Verification tools:

Serials Solutions:

• Serials Directory find ISSN's, indexing sources, online versions of journal...
• All that JAS: Journal Abbreviation Sources is a registry of Web resources that list or provide access to the full title of journal abbreviations. A link listing of web sites (general and subject area specific)
• Genamics JournalSeek is the largest completely categorized database of freely available journal information available on the internet. The database presently contains 55033 titles. Journal information includes the description (aims and scope), journal abbreviation, journal homepage link, subject category and ISSN.
• PubMed (NCBI) Journal Browser - Search by PubMed Journal Title abbreviations or by ISSN
• PubMed Single Citation Matcher - match individual citations using partial information.
• PSU Patron Department & Status page
• WWW Library Directory (Michael Sauers)
• Other verification tools from ILLWeb
• MARC Standards (Library of Congress)
• Symbols and Interlibrary Loan Policies in Canada

Search for publications put out by:

• American Chemical Society (ACS)
• Blackwell Publishing (Sciences, Law, Humanities, etc.)
• Elsevier (Scientific, Technical, Health)
• Frank Cass Publishers (History, Soc. Sci, etc)
• HighWire Library of the Sciences and Medicine (Biological, Medical, Physical, Social Sciences...) Also can search MEDLINE from this site. Topic Map @~@~
• Oxford Journals
• Sage Publications
• Springer-Verlag LINK (Scientific)
• Wiley Interscience Journal Finder

Online Journal Archives:

• American Physical Society Online Archive (Physical Review A, B, C...).
  APS Search Engine (searches all pub's back to 1893)