Inter Library Loans

Occasionally we may not be able to supply the work you have requested. There are a number of common reasons why this might occur:

No UK suppliers can be found

We can only supply inter loans through libraries in the UK. If the item you have requested is rare or from an overseas publisher it may be difficult to locate in the UK.

This can occur if you are requesting material in a foreign language or special publications from a journal which might not have been part of the regular subscription.

Request refused for digital rights management reasons

The supply of inter library loan articles from electronic resources relies on the digital rights management policy of the publisher. Some publishers will not allow supply of articles through inter loan from the electronic version. This may mean we cannot provide you with a copy of the article if it is not held in hard copy by a UK institution.

The supplier declines to lend

The loan of physical books and journals relies upon the policy of the lending institution. This may mean that we cannot secure a loan of your requested item even when it is held by a number of UK libraries.

Common reasons for refusing to lend include:

The item is a new addition to the collection

The item is in high demand

The library has a legal obligation not to lend the item

Item has not yet been published

If an item has not yet been published we will be unable to source it for you, please check the date of publication on the publishers web page where possible.

It may also be difficult to obtain items soon after publication, new publications can take up to 4 months to go through processing and be available for loan from the British Library.  Other libraries may not be willing to loan new additions to their collection.

If we cannot fulfill your request for this reason you can still request the item again at a later date, although both requests would be counted against your allocation.

Online First publication

Many publishers now offer access to journal articles online before their official publication in the journal, this may mean you are able to discover details of articles which are as yet unpublished.

Usually online first access is restricted to subscribers of the journal only, which means we may not be able to obtain them through inter loan before the official date of publication.

This does not mean that all online first publications will be unavailable as different publishers have different policies, you may also be able to find what you need online through Open Access or author sharing.

A lot of my requests have been cancelled  - is there anything I can do?

If we are having trouble sourcing material for your research through inter library loan you may wish to speak to your Academic Librarian about other options.

If you would like more information on why a request has been cancelled please contact us.