ILLiad launch delayed

The launch of ILLiad, the new interlibrary loan system, has been delayed for the present time.  We will continue to keep you posted so please watch this blog or our Facebook page for updated information.

If you have any questions please contact Andrew Shuping at shuping_ad@mercer.edu or 478-301-2251.

Do you have my textbook?

It’s the time of year when we get a lot of questions textbooks, so before you come and ask “Does the library have my textbook?” let me save you some time and say...probably not. And the next question is "Can we get textbooks through Interlibrary Loan (ILL)" and the answer is....no.

I know, I know it sounds really mean, but we do have good reasons for this so if you keep reading for a bit I'll give you a brief explanation.


We usually don’t purchase textbooks because they are really expensive and the publishers push out new editions so often that books become obsolete very quickly.  If we purchased every textbook for every class we wouldn't be able to buy all of the other books you may need for your research or anything else.  While you may find a book that's being used for your course, its very rare and its likely an older out of date edition, meaning that page numbers and information would likely not match up with the information your professor wants you to have.

Students also ask us if we can get their textbooks on Interlibrary Loan (ILL). The answer is no.  Just as we don't buy the textbooks most other libraries don't buy textbooks.  Even more important its frowned upon in ILL to borrow textbooks as it puts other libraries at a disadvantage and generally goes against ILL rules (there are a set of rules nationwide that govern ILL policy.)  Please don't ask and please don't make the request for your textbooks via Interlibrary Loan because it could hinder our ability to get other books from libraries.


So while we appreciate your visits to the library and we want you to get your books and information here, but we don't intentionally purchase textbooks and we can't borrow them through Interlibrary Loan.

Did you know?

Do you know how Interlibrary Loan (ILL) works?

This post will give you a brief play by play on what happens and how it works

Here's what you, the user does:

• You find a citation.
• Check the citation in the library catalog to see if we subscribe to it in print or check Online Journals to see if we have it in another database.
• If not, you head to the ILL page (or use the prepopulated ILL forms in the EBSCO or Wilson databases) to make your request.
  
• That's it for you! What you've done is found the citation, checked the library catalog, and checked online journals. You then made your request with the citation information and your information.
  

What happens next:

• Interlibrary Loan staff receive and review your request. We make sure that we have all of the information that we need to process your request.
• Our ILL staff then check to see who has the book or article and are they in one of the groups that we belong too. Why can't we just get it from a library that you found that has it? Well we may not belong to the same group or they don't have that exact issue. Or they want to charge us too much money. Why is this important? Because we don't want to have to pass on the cost of ILL onto you.
  
• We then choose a grouping of libraries that has the material that you requested.
  
• Then its up to these libraries that we've asked to borrow from. That's why it takes a while for your books and articles to come. We have to wait just like you for the materials to arrive. We have no control over the time it takes a lending library to get us the articles or books.
  
• Once we receive your item(s) we will notify you that it is ready for pickup.

That's the basics of how ILL works. If you have any questions during these steps make sure to get in touch with one of the reference librarians.