Interlibrary Loan

Interlibrary loan is a service of the library that provides current students, faculty, and staff with materials that are not available at the library.

Interlibrary loan services are provided to current students, faculty, and staff of Methodist University.

Patrons can request books, journal articles, and audio/visual materials that the Library does not own or are not available.

Patrons cannot request books that are assigned textbooks for classes taken through MU or another school. Patrons also are unable to request items currently available at the Davis Memorial Library.

Interlibrary loan requests can be submitted online or in the Library. Patrons must complete the appropriate interlibrary loan request form(s). Please provide complete citation information for each request; incomplete citations will delay your request. More than one item may be requested on each form.

There is no limit to the number of items you can request. Although, when requesting multiple items, please indicate on the forms which items are your highest priority. ILL staff may process your requests over several days in the case of a large group of requests, and this lets us know what is the most important to you.

All items should be picked up at the Circulation Desk.

ILL is a free service provided by MU when the rules are followed. There are fees associated with failure to pick up materials, overdue books, and lost/damaged items.

If the materials have not been picked up in two weeks, you will be assessed a fee of $5 per item.

Regular abuse of interlibrary loan policies will result in suspension of ILL privileges for the current semester.

Books are shipped via the US mail, so travel time must be factored. The other factors have to do with how libraries own the item, how popular it is, and how current it is. If you have not been notified about your book within 10 days, please contact ILL staff to check on your request.

Articles, for the most part, are scanned and emailed to the borrowing library, so often articles are received within 24-48 hours. Articles may also be sent via fax or US mail. If you have not received the article requested within four days, please contact ILL staff to check on your request.

The lending institution sets the due date. On average, due dates range from three to six weeks.

You can ask for a renewal. Please contact ILL staff as soon as you know you need a renewal. The ILL staff will then ask the lending institution for the renewal. The other library may accept or deny the request for a renewal. If the lending library denies the renewal, we will attempt to order the item from another library.

Copies of articles are posted to your online ILL account under the Electronically Received Articles. The articles are available for 30 days then they are deleted. Please access your articles and print and/or save them, if needed, prior to that date.

Copies of articles are yours to keep.