Interlibrary Loan Services: Delivering the World’s Resources to Your Desktop!

Need an article or material not available online or at the University Libraries? Request it through Interlibrary Loan Services. Accessible online 24/7 to Ball State students, faculty, staff, and students, the Interlibrary Loan system, ILLiad, allows requests for resources from the convenience of one’s office, dorm, or home.

Providing access to worldwide resources, Interlibrary Loan is a valuable extension of the University Libraries collections.

“This service expands the library so that almost every research need is within the faculty’s reach,” says Dr. Lee Spector, Associate Professor, Department of Economics.

Interlibrary Loan staff quickly processes requests, with over 17,500 items borrowed from other institutions and over 31,100 loaned to other institutions during FY 2004-05. When we borrow an item, the time between placing a request and the item’s availability is typically 3 to 10 days.

“Those of us who do research are very lucky to have a very efficient and friendly staff operating the Interlibrary Loan department for they make our lives so much easier,” said Dr. Spector.

A popular component of the user-friendly ILLiad system is full text access to requested journal articles, which allows you to read the article from any computer. A courtesy notification, including a direct link to ILLiad, arrives in your email when the article is available. Each article is accessible for up to 30 days.

ILLiad is also conveniently linked via SFX to the FirstSearch databases, such as WorldCat. When viewing records in these databases, you will see a link, “Request via Interlibrary Loan.” Clicking on this link takes you to the ILLiad login. After login, most of the ILLiad request form is automatically populated from the specific resource’s record.

An equally vital component of Interlibrary Loan Services is our own lending. University Libraries loans its materials to libraries worldwide, fulfilling the research needs of those institutions’ users. Ball State University Libraries is the second largest lender in Indiana.

“For the size of the collection, Interlibrary Loan at Ball State loans a lot of material to state institutions,” said Collette Mak, Directory of Library Products at Indiana Cooperative Library Services Authority (INCOLSA).

To request material, go to the Interlibrary Loan web page, www.bsu.edu/library/collections/ill. Enter your Outlook username and password to access ILLiad. First time users must enter their registration information. Request forms display after entering ILLiad. Select the form for the type of material desired and input the data in the appropriate field. Once items are available, you will be notified via email.
Available articles will be accessible via the link in the email notification. Resources are normally obtained at no charge. Please contact the Interlibrary Loan staff at (765) 285-1324 or interlib@bsu.edu with questions. The friendly, helpful staff in the Libraries’ Interlibrary Loan Services are eager to assist students, faculty and staff to locate materials for teaching, learning and research.