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Interlibrary Loan FAQ
The ILL Process
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Before we order
- We check to make sure that we do not own it.
- If we do and it is checked out we will order it for you.
- If it is available we will notify you or, if you take classes off campus we will mail it to you.
- We check to make sure that the article is not available online.
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How we order
- We check on the status of your request every 3 days or so and follow up on problems with the lending library.
- You can monitor the status of your request through Tipasa.
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How we deliver
- When we receive the items we notify you immediately via an email to your SVSU email.
- For articles we use electronic delivery via Tipasa to provide 24-7 access to your requests.
- Note: the notification email includes a link with a password specific to that article. Use Tipasa to view all available articles.
- If you take classes off campus we will send you the materials (you are responsible for returning materials with due dates),
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Before we cancel a request
- If it cannot be found as cited:
- We verify your citation to check for mistakes or incompleteness.
- We search not only by title but ISSN (articles) or ISBN (books).
- If we found a matching record on the system but no libraries are able/willing to loan to us:
- We try other searches (variations on title, ISSN/ISBN, other editions, etc.) to find a record with different libraries to choose from.
- For articles we check to see if the article is available free online on the Web.
- If our original order comes back unfilled and there are more libraries to choose from we will contact you to see if you want us to try again.
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Why We Can't Fill Every Request
- Dissertations
- Usually only 1-2 libraries own a dissertation, and many choose not to loan them to other libraries (our success rate is around 25%).
- New Books
- Many times information about a new book is made available before the book is released (pre-publication information from Books in Print or Amazon.com).
- In those cases the book is not available from our partner libraries.
- When a book is finally released for distribution it takes a while for libraries to purchase, process, and catalog them.
- In addition, many libraries to not lend recently purchased books (us included).
- Old, Reference and Novelty Books
- Very old books are often in poor condition or are rare and irreplaceable and are kept in non-circulating Archives collections (us included).
- Few libraries lend Reference books.
- Some novelty/specialty books may have a limited publication (e.g., genealogy family histories) or may be considered a high-risk for theft or damage and are not lent.
- Articles
- Electronic journals licenses vary greatly.
- New, foreign, and esoteric journals may be represented only a few libraries.
- Expense. In cases where costs are prohibitive we will contact you (e.g., copyright fees, borrowing fees, etc.).
FAQ
- Getting into Tipasa is no problem, but I cannot read the document.
- Adobe Acrobat is probably not loaded. This may be done at http://www.adobe.com/
- NOTE: step one is loading the download file onto your PC.
- Note *where* the download is going to!
- I am unable to Print articles from Tipasa and Adobe Acrobat is installed.
- If Acrobat opens in your browser instead of a separate window make sure you use the Acrobat print icon instead of your browser print commands.
- Forgetting to do this will result in printing one blank page only.
- These ILL articles come in huge files, sometimes 1 mb and more. Not only does it take a long time for some of them to load (depending on your connection), but then printing them requires reloading again. Depending on your Printer's memory, this could take a long time as well.
- Bottom line: if the document is loading, be *very* patient.
- Best bet: find the fastest Internet connection and printer combination to print the articles.
- I was not notified that an article or book had arrived
- If you were not notified, either your Tipasa contact information in is incorrect, or the message was moved to your junk/spam folder.
- NOTE: You may update your contact information in Tipasa.
It still remains your responsibility to check on the status of your request (permit at least a week to pass first!). Contact the Circulation Desk (989.964.4240). Tipasa will tell you when the lending library has the article or book in transit.