Inter Library Loans

What is the Inter Library Loan Service?

Inter Library Loans is a special service which helps staff and students obtain material that is not held by the University of Aberdeen's Library. Through the national Inter Library Loan network the Library is able to borrow items and obtain photocopies from other libraries in the United Kingdom and abroad.

Who can use the service?

The service is funded by University academic units and not the library and so it is important that you check with your department before you submit a request. You will need an Inter Library loan voucher before you submit your request. Information about voucher charges is available.

Individual members of the library may also purchase vouchers to pay for requests, as may corporate members.

For details on how academic units / schools / colleges may place internal orders for ILL request vouchers click here.

What does the service cover?

Books, reports, theses (see also EThOS), copies of patents or standards, orchestral scores, issues of periodicals or articles may be requested.

Before you submit a request

Please make sure that you have checked the library catalogue before you submit a request. Each year we find approximately 50% of requests received are for items already in the University of Aberdeen's library collections. When checking for journal articles remember to check the Library Holds statement in the Library Catalogue. This is a statement indicating the volumes and years held by the library and appears as follows:

Library holds      Library has v. 1, no. 1 (1934)-v. 55, no. 1 (1988)

News

EThOS theses service - The British Library no longer supply microform copies of UK theses. The electronic theses service EThOS service is now live. Researchers are able to access and download any one of over 20,000 e-theses already available and are able to search through and place a request for over 300,000 British doctoral theses. Most are available as free downloads but there may be a charge of up to £40.00 depending on the awarding institution's level of participation in EThOS.  Further information about EThOS is available at http://www.ethos.ac.uk/. If a particular doctoral thesis is not available in electronic format as an e-thesis you can submit an Inter library loan request to try to borrow the printed copy.

The Copyright Directive: Legislation from the European Parliament, means that requests for copies can only be processed if the end user has signes a declaration that the copy is for private study or research that is not for a commercial purpose. For more details click here.

Any reader who feels that he/she cannot in good faith sign this declaration can get in touch with us: copyright cleared articles can be obtained on payment of the publisher's copyright fee.

Information on borrowing for other libraries

We can provide loans and photocopies from our collections to libraries in the UK.

Most material is available for loan except the following:

• Heavy Demand Collection
• 3-day loan material
• Audio-visual material
• Microform material
• Reference material
• Teaching Resource Collection material
• Special Collections material

UK libraries

Apply to library@abdn.ac.uk quoting your British Library account number and request reference number.

Overseas Libraries

• We do not lend material to non-UK libraries.