Herrick Interlibrary Loan

Information for Alfred faculty, students, and staff

What is Interlibrary Loan?

Interlibrary loan is a service that allows you to obtain materials not available at your own library. Herrick Library borrows these materials, on your behalf, from other libraries.

Who is eligible for interlibrary loan?

All current staff, faculty, and students at Alfred University with valid IDs, as well as Emerti faculty.

How do I contact interlibrary loan?

Submit requests through ILLiad, our online interlibrary loan system.

Interlibrary Loan Department
Herrick Memorial Library
Saxon Drive
Alfred, NY 14802-1205
Tel: 607-871-2227 or 607-871-2184
Fax: 607-871-2299
E-mail: illau@alfred.edu
Hours: Monday - Friday, 8:00 am – 4:00 pm
Staff: Amanda Criss, Head of Borrowing; Ellen Bahr, Interlibrary Loan Coordinator

Is there a charge for interlibrary loan?

In almost all cases, the library covers the cost of interlibrary loan and there is no charge to you.

In rare cases where the cost of the interlibrary loan transaction exceeds what the library is willing to pay (currently the maximum is set at $75), we will contact you before we order the item to find out if you are willing to pay the additional cost.

What types of materials are available?

We will attempt to borrow whatever material you need, with the exception of textbooks which are not available through interlibrary loan.

Items that are usually easy to borrow are:
Books; magazine, journal, or newspaper articles; government documents, microfilm and microfiche.

Items that can be more difficult to borrow are:
Books published in the last year; theses and dissertations; reference books; rare books and manuscripts; entire volumes of journals; multi-volume sets; audio-visual material including movies and music; and unpublished papers.

Some requests take more time than others. If you have questions about whether the library can obtain the item that you need, please contact the Interlibrary Loan department.

How long does it take?

Most requests take a week to ten days from the time we receive your request until the time when the item is available to you.

How do I make a request?

Log onto ILLiad and submit a request for each item that you need. Please provide as much information as possible since this will speed your request. If you have a deadline, indicate the date by which you need the materials.

Before you make a request, check to see if the item is available at Herrick Library, Scholes Library, or Hinkle Library (at Alfred State University). Items that are owned by one of the libraries but which are either missing or currently checked out CAN be requested through Interlibrary Loan. If you need help determining if the item is available through an Alfred library, see a librarian or contact the Interlibrary Loan department.

If you request a large number of articles at once and the overall demand in ILL is high, we reserve the right to process ten requests per patron per week. If this happens, you will be notified. You can prioritize your requests by submitting them in the order that you wish to receive them or by contacting our ILL staff at illau@alfred.edu.

How will I know when the materials have arrived?

You will receive an e-mail notice. If it is a book, you will be asked to pick it up at the library's front desk (you will need your ID to pick up the book). If it is an article, you will log in to ILLiad where you can view the article.

How long can I keep the materials?

The average loan time for a book is three weeks. Because of the limited lending period, books that are needed for an entire semester should not be requested through interlibrary loan.

Articles are available in ILLiad for 30 days. If you want to keep a copy of the article, you should print it. Copyright law specifies that copies may not be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research."

What if I need to keep the materials for longer than the loan period?

You must submit a request at least five days before the due date. Submit requests for renewals via ILLiad.

The decision to provide a renewal is made by the lending library and is outside of the control of Herrick’s Interlibrary Loan department. If the lending library will not allow renewal, you will be notified, and the item must be returned to Herrick Library by the due date indicated on the item. If you still need the item, we will try to acquire it from another library.

Why did I receive a notice that the item was “recalled” and that I would have to return it right away?

Occasionally, a lending library recalls an item because it is needed by one of its own patrons. If this happens, you will receive a notice by e-mail asking that you return the item right away.

Help, I received an overdue notice but I still need the item.

If you received an overdue notice, please return the item right away. In order to maintain good relationships with our lending libraries, we must return their items on time. If you do not return the item, you will be charged for the cost of replacing it.

We reserve the right to suspend interlibrary loan privileges to patrons who repeatedly ignore interlibrary loan policies and procedures, including consistently returning items late, damaging materials, or not returning items at all.

Is there a way to request high-quality copies of articles? For example, some scientific articles contain images that are best viewed in color or grayscale rather than in black-and-white.

If you let us know that you need high-quality copies, we will try to get them for you. Please indicate this in your interlibrary loan request. Please be aware that it may take longer than usual to obtain the article.

Herrick's policies for lending to other institutions

Interlibrary Loan Department
Herrick Memorial Library
Saxon Drive
Alfred, NY 14802-1205
Telephone: 607-871-2227 or 607-871-2184
Fax: 607-871-2299
E-mail: crissam@alfred.edu
Hours: Monday - Friday, 8:00 am – 4:00 pm
Staff: Amanda Criss, Head of Lending; Ellen Bahr, Interlibrary Loan Coordinator

OCLC Code: YAH
ARIEL: arielhml.alfred.edu
Internet Address: illau@alfred.edu
Union List: YSUU, ZERO, LVIS

DO NOT LEND:
Reference Material, Special Collections & Rare Books, Microforms, Fragile Books, Heavy Oversize.

RECIPROCAL AGREEMENTS:
Reciprocal agreements are welcome; contact Amanda Criss at crissam@alfred.edu.

BILLING FOR LOST & OVERDUE:
After an item is overdue for 30 days we send out a warning letter. Two weeks after the warning letter we send a bill. If we receive no response to the bill in 30 days, the borrowing library’s ILL privileges are suspended.

We subscribe to the National ILL Code of the U. S.: the borrowing institution is responsible for the return of materials, and in good condition (section 4.8).