Interlibrary Loan

During your research, you may come across an article that is not available in the NU Library and cannot be freely accessed on the web. You may request articles free of charge from these unsubscribed publications through the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service.

Requests are processed with a general turnaround time of 5-7 business days; however, please note that the fulfillment of the requested resource is dependent on its availability through a lending library. Additionally, some publishers have placed access restrictions on certain issues making article content unavailable to the requester.

Follow these steps to request an article through Interlibrary Loan:

1. Access the Interlibrary Loan system and login using your NU school email address as your username (Example: F.Lastname1234@o365.ncu.edu) and enter your selected password for interlibrary loan. NOTE: If this is your first time accessing the Interlibrary Loan system, please see this Library FAQ on accessing your account as a first-time user.                                                                                                                                                                                      
2. Once you are logged in, click Create Request under the Requested tab.                                                                                                                                                     
3. Under Create Request, select the Article Request form and fill out all required information for the resource, including journal title, article title, author, publication year, and page numbers. Click Submit Request at the end of the form to finalize your request.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
4. You will receive an email confirmation, as well as an SMS/text notification if enabled, that your interlibrary loan request is being processed. Your item request will display as Submitted on your account dashboard. 

Alternatively, you can place your request directly from the Article Linker page during a search in the Library, as shown below. Accessing your Interlibrary Loan account from this screen will populate the request form with the publication details of the resource.

As an Interlibrary Loan user, you may only request one book chapter per book title electronically through the service under Copyright Law. Note that required course textbooks or supplemental books listed in your syllabus are not eligible for Interlibrary Loan. 

Before submitting an Interlibrary Loan request for a book chapter, consider the following: 

• Compare WorldCat holdings to see if a library near you owns the physical book or resource for checkout. In WorldCat, you can enter the book title in the search box, and on the book summary page, you can enter your zip code or address in the Enter your Location box. A list of libraries owning the resource will display; however, always confirm availability of the resource by contacting the library directly.                                                                                         
• Consider searching for similar book titles available in full-text within the NU Library by accessing the Ebook databases. The Ebook Central database provides access to more than 200,000 books covering diverse subjects.

If you are unable to obtain the full-text of a book, you may place a request for a single chapter through Interlibrary Loan. If available through a lending library, the book chapter will be delivered to you electronically within 5-7 business days. If you need help with identifying which chapter to request, we recommend reviewing the book's table of contents, if available, through Amazon or Google Books. 

Follow these steps to request a book chapter through Interlibrary Loan:

1. Access the Interlibrary Loan system and login using your NU school email address as your username (Example: F.Lastname1234@o365.ncu.edu) and enter your selected password for interlibrary loan. NOTE: If this is your first time accessing the Interlibrary Loan system, please see this Library FAQ on accessing your account as a first-time user.                                                                                                                                                                                      
2. Once you are logged in, click Create Request under the Requested tab.                                                                                                                                                     
3. Under Create Request, select the Book Chapter Request form and fill out all required information for the resource, including book title, chapter title, author(s)/editor(s), publication year, and page numbers. Click Submit Request at the end of the form to finalize your request.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
4. You will receive an email confirmation, as well as an SMS/text notification if enabled, that your interlibrary loan request is being processed. Your item request will display as Submitted on your account dashboard.                                                                                                                                            

Before submitting an Interlibrary Loan request for a conference proceeding, dissertation, or thesis, consider the following:

• Search the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global database to see if the dissertation/thesis is available in full text. 
• Search open access repositories for dissertations and theses.
• Try to locate the conference proceeding freely available online from the websites of professional associations, societies, or organizations. Once on the website, look for information about their publications. These links may be labeled as Publications, Research, Resources, Proceedings, or the like. Keep in mind, however, that there may be a charge for full-text proceedings if you are not a member of that organization. Sometimes organizations offer student membership rates. If you plan to use the proceedings often, it may benefit you to join.

• Compare WorldCat holdings to see if a library near you owns the resource. Enter the title of the resource in the search box. If a record is available, you can enter your zip code or address in the Enter your Location box on the resource summary page. A list of libraries owning the resource will display; however, always confirm availability of the resource by contacting the library directly. 

These items may be difficult to obtain through Interlibrary Loan for the following reasons:

• Most libraries will not loan electronic conference proceedings because the publishers often do not allow sharing this content per the terms of their licensing agreements. For example, IEEE is a publisher that does not permit libraries to loan the proceedings from their annual conferences and meetings.
• Print conference proceedings often present an issue with copyright. Since a single proceeding typically comprises more than 10 percent of the entire document, they are not able to be shared.
• Proceedings can often take 1-3 years to be published and may only be provided to the conference attendees.
• Some institutions do not make their theses or dissertations available for loan. Additionally, some institutions only make their dissertations and theses available as printed books and they may not have electronic copies available. 
• The author has chosen not to make their work available or has placed an embargo that restricts access to users for a specific period of time. These works may include a statement in a database or online repository that the dissertation or thesis is not available to view or purchase.

You may submit a request through Interlibrary Loan for a conference proceeding, dissertation, thesis, or other material, and if the request is unable to be filled, you will receive a notification with further explanation.

Follow these steps to request a conference proceeding, dissertation, or thesis through Interlibrary Loan:

1. Access the Interlibrary Loan system and login using your NU school email address as your username (Example: F.Lastname1234@o365.ncu.edu) and enter your selected password for interlibrary loan. NOTE: If this is your first time accessing the Interlibrary Loan system, please see this Library FAQ on accessing your account as a first-time user.                                                                                                                                                                                      
2. Once you are logged in, click Create Request under the Requested tab.                                                                                                                        
3. Under Create Request, select the Other (Dissertation, Thesis, Conference Paper, etc.) form and fill out all required information for the resource, including title, author(s), publication year, and page numbers. Click Submit Request at the end of the form to finalize your request.                                                                                                                                                                  
4. You will receive an email confirmation, as well as an SMS/text notification if enabled, that your interlibrary loan request is being processed. Your item request will display as Submitted on your account dashboard.