Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
Interlibrary loan (ILL) is a FREE service for current Bryan College students, faculty, and staff.
You will find information below on how to request items through ILL, as well as answers to common ILL questions.
How to Request Items Through ILL
When searching the Discovery System, you may find an item that is not provided by the BCL. If Bryan College Library does not provide access to the item you need, click on the the "Request Item through Interlibrary Loan" button and it will begin a request form, automatically filling in the required item information.
Find the item
Look up your desired item by author or title. Or, if you are searching your topic and come across a book title that the Bryan College Library does not have access to, you follow the same process.
The Discovery System will automatically only search 'Bryan College Library' (you will have immediate access to anything that appears in the search results), so you will have to manually switch the filter to 'Libraries Worldwide.'
If an item says 'At Tennessee Libraries,' 'At other libraries worldwide,' or 'At Appalachian College Association Libraries,' the item will have to be requested through ILL.
Open the Item
Click on the title of the item, and then on 'Request Item through Interlibrary Loan.'
This will open a request form.
Do Not Change the Top of the Form
The top part of the form is information about the book being requested. LEAVE THIS INFORMATION THE WAY IT APPEARS.
*The only time you will edit this form is if you are requesting a specific chapter or page range.
Fill in the Rest
The rest of the form includes questions about the date you need it by, how much you are willing to pay, and your information.
Your Patron ID are the numerical digits after your name in your email.
*Items will never be requested that cost money. If you really need the item and are willing to pay, please put that in the form. You will be contacted before an item is requested that will require payment.
Your Book is Ready!
You will receive an email when the item is available to be picked up in the Bryan College Library, or if the person requesting the item(s) on your behalf have any follow up questions.
Locate the Item
If the article that you need has anything other than 'Available Bryan College Library,' you will need to request the item through ILL.
Open the Item
Click on the title of the article, then 'Request Item through Interlibrary Loan.'
Do Not Change the Top of the Form
The top part of the form is information about the article being requested. LEAVE THIS INFORMATION THE WAY IT APPEARS.
The only time you will edit this part of the form, is if you notice that it is missing information that you have access to, or if something is not appearing the way that it should. Only edit the form if you know that it is wrong.
Fill in the Rest
The rest of the form includes questions about the date you need it by, how much you are willing to pay, and your information.
Your Patron ID are the numerical digits after your name in your email.
*Items will never be requested that cost money. If you really need the item and are willing to pay, please put that in the form. You will be contacted before an item is requested that will require payment.
Your Article is Available!
You will receive an email when the article is available. The email will include a link and a password.
If you have any questions about how to access the article, or are receiving an error message, please respond to the email that contained the access information.
Locate the Item
This is the process you use if you have found the article
Open the Item
Click on the title of the journal, then 'Request Item through Interlibrary Loan.'
_7ca50ec5-93c3-403e-aed2-e7c3e508e6d9.png)
Edit the Top of the Form
Fill in all of the information that you have about the article that you need.
This includes:
- title of the article
- author of the article
- date that it was published
- volume and issue
- page numbers of the article
If you do not have some of these pieces, do not make it up, or put in 0. Leave the space blank.
Fill in the Rest
The rest of the form includes questions about the date you need it by, how much you are willing to pay, and your information.
Your Patron ID are the numerical digits after your name in your email.
*Items will never be requested that cost money. If you really need the item and are willing to pay, please put that in the form. You will be contacted before an item is requested that will require payment.
Your Article is Available!
You will receive an email when the article is available. The email will include a link and a password.
If you have any questions about how to access the article, or are receiving an error message, please respond to the email that contained the access information.
Common ILL Questions
Articles and print books can be requested. Bryan College Library cannot already own the item. Even if the item has been checked out by someone else and you would like it, we cannot request the item.
Current students, faculty, and staff can request items through ILL.
Distance students are able to request articles the same way as residential students.
For distance students considering a book request, please be aware that the BC Library cannot request eBooks, and you will probably have access to the item much quicker if you request the item through your local public or academic library.
ILL is a free service that the library provides to current students, faculty, and staff.
Items will not be requested that cost money.
If you really need the item, and are willing to pay for it, there is a space on the form to put in a dollar amount. You will be contacted before the item is requested if it has a fee. The vast majority of time, the item will be free to request.
Articles are generally available within 1-4 days.
Books usually take between 6-14 days.
If you think that you might need the item for your research, please request it right away!
For both articles and books, you will receive an email to tell you that the item is available and how to access it (articles).
For articles:
You will receive a link and password to open your requested article. The article is generally available for 30 days or 5 views, whichever comes first. This can be edited by the lending library, so it is best to access the article as soon as you receive the login information.
For books:
The lending library sets the due date for the item. It is usually between 3 weeks and 3 months.
If you cannot access the article using the link and password that was emailed to you, please respond to that email as soon as possible with the article title and the error message it is displaying.
Please visit the Bryan College Library or email bethany.perry@bryan.edu for assistance.