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Interlibrary Loan

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Policies

Who Can Borrow?

Current students, faculty (including emeritus and retired) and staff with a valid Boston College ID can request items through ILL. Members of the Boston College Law School Community should refer to this guide for instruction about placing ILL requests.

Faculty members may designate an ILL proxy. Proxy users should indicate the name of the faculty member they are requesting items for in the note field of the ILL request form.

Interlibrary loan is not available to alumni, guest borrowers, or fee-card holders.

What Can Be Requested?

Loans may include articles, books, book chapters, physical media, dissertations, maps, etc. Occasionally some items are not available for loan due to copyright restrictions, institutional policy or item condition.

How Long Does It Take?

Articles are usually received within 1–2 days and books in 5-10 business days. However, obtaining items that are rare, recently published or in high demand may take longer. To expedite the process, please make sure the information you submit via the ILL Request Form is accurate. 

Length of Loans

Loan periods are established by the lending library. All due dates are noted on the label.

Borrowed items are subject to recall by the lending library. Any restrictions established by the lending library will be indicated on the label.

No renewals are granted for physical items borrowed through ILL.

Interlibrary Loan Account

Notification/ Delivery Options

Physical Items

You will be notified by e-mail when a requested item arrives. Items are picked up at the library selected in the ILL Request Form.

Articles/Chapters

You will be notified via email when an article or book chapter has been scanned and is available. To obtain the article or chapter, click on the link provided in the email and log into your ILL account. Once in your account, select Electronic Articles Received. Please note that access to scans is limited to 30 days.

Lost or Damaged Items

Users are responsible for all costs associated with lost or damaged materials. Charges for lost items are assessed by the lending library.

Copyright and Reciprocal Agreements

Interlibrary Loan services are administered in accordance with the American Library Association's National Interlibrary Loan Code (1993), the U.S. Copyright Revision Act of 1976 (17. United States Code. 101 et seq.) and in conformance with the resource sharing agreements with the Boston Library Consortium (BLC), the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU), the Boston Theological Institute (BTI), the Massachusetts Library and Information Network (MLIN) and reciprocal agreements entered into with individual libraries. Boston College Libraries adhere to CONTU guidelines.