How does ILL Borrowing work?
Why does it take so long?

ILL Borrowing does not lease or rent materials, and rarely does it buy materials. Instead, it borrows materials from other libraries, museums, non-profit organizations, and government agencies. Since we are asking to borrow, not placing an order, we usually have to ask multiple lenders, sometimes asking the same lender multiple times, and wait for an answer from each one. Many times they will lend or copy quickly for us; other times they reply "no" or "'maybe" and we then have to begin the asking process over again.

It might help to think of Interlibrary Loan on a more personal level. If you own a book, car, or iPod and someone asks you to borrow it, you may be happy to let them use it for a few days or weeks, but you probably want to reserve the right to decide to whom you loan it, for how long they get to keep it, and how you want it treated when they have it. You may also be glad to loan it to them when you have finished with it, but not immediately when they ask for it. Some items you may simply refuse to lend to others, or lend only to your closest friends or family members because the items are valuable or meaningful or one-of-a-kind. Other times, you may have to explain that you would love to lend it, but someone else already has borrowed it or that you cannot find it. Likewise, just as you do with your personal belongings, libraries often do with their materials.

Unlike ordering directly from an online store or borrowing from a friend, your Interlibrary Loan request must go through many, many steps, some of which are outlined below -- most of which are outside of Joyner Library ILL's control.

• ILL staff receives and processes your request in ILLiad.
• • We verify your request and ensure that the library does not already own it.
    
  • • Not all requests are easy to find or understand. Foreign language materials and citations with abbreviations or information in the wrong fields can greatly delay our processing.
      
  • We locate potential lenders, and asks those lenders to provide the material to Joyner Library for your use.
    
• Your request is sent to a lending string of up to five potential libraries. These usually are libraries with which we have special arrangements to provide materials to each other's patrons. Materials not owned by our preferred libraries are sought from other libraries, but they may not be as willing or able to loan to us.
• • Each library is allowed four weekdays to respond with a "yes" or "no" answer to our request. Most reply quickly, but others takes several days to respond.
    
  • During these hours or days that a lending library has your request, it must check its catalog to see if it the item is owned, is checked-in, and is able to be loaned/photocopied. It must then check its shelves to see if the item is actually there and is in a good enough condition to be loaned or photocopied; it could be lost, or too fragile to handle.
  • It then must either scan and send electronically, or package the item for mailing or shipping.
  • • Due to the high cost of expedited shipping services like FedEx, UPS, and DHL, very few libraries use them to loan materials. As fast and as reliable as the US Postal Service is, few libraries use its expedited delivery service for packages or pay first class postage to send packages to libraries. Most often, libraries use 'library rate' which is similar to 'media mail' if you have ever shipped books or media items -- it is a cheap service, but usually takes most of a week or longer. Materials borrowed from other countries may spend several weeks in shipping alone.
      
  • It also must update the database software that it uses, often the same as we use, ILLiad. It also must check the item out on its library circulation system.
• If a lending library says no for whatever reason (checked out, lost, is non-circulating, etc.), the request is then sent to another library in the string until one agrees to loan. If all libraries in the lending string respond "no" it comes back to the ILL staff at Joyner for review and for us to locate other libraries that may be able to loan it. If the citation checks out still and other libraries may be found, your request is sent back off and repeats the above steps.
• Once your request is finally sent by the lending library, Joyner's staff must process it once again. So, on top of the processing at Joyner Library mailing packages of books often takes four-five days.
  • We have to unpack it if it were mailed/shipped. If sent electronically, we must review the scan.
    
  • We verify we received the right item.
  • We inform the lending library that the package or article has been received.
  • We label the item.
  • We notify you that it is available for you to pickup.

As you can tell, it is an intricate process -- and this is just an overview of it! So, when an article comes in within a couple of weekdays, it is truly amazing. When a book or other loaned item is received within a week, it is truly astonishing.