Interlibrary loans

Staff and students of the University each have a quota of interlibrary loans provided free of charge. Quotas last for one academic year (1st August to 31st July). The quotas are:

• Academic and Academic-related staff - Unlimited
• Support staff - 10
• Postgraduate researchers - 50
• Postgraduate taught students - 10
• Undergraduate students - 10
• Distance learners - 10

If you've used your quota and want to place additional requests please contact us at documentsupply@contacts.bham.ac.uk. 

1. Go to FindIt@Bham and login, using your university account.
2. Perform a search to check that we don't already have a copy of the item you need.
3. Go to the results screen and select Expand beyond Library Resources.
4. Your search will be matched with results outside our collections, as well as those we do hold. The link ‘No online full text, check for print journal/book…’ confirms that we don’t have this article in our electronic collections.
5. Click the 'No online full text, check for print journal/book' link. 
6. A menu appears. Select the link ‘Interlibrary loan request (can take up to four working days)’. This takes you to the Interlibrary Loan Request form.
7. The form has been pre-populated with details of the article. Prepopulating the form means you’ll get your item quicker.
8. Read the copyright declaration and tick the box to confirm you understand the copyright statement and will agree to abide by it.
9. Select the ‘Request’ button.

If the item you need isn’t returned when you select ‘Expand beyond Library Resources’, click the three dots in the top right-hand corner of the and select “InterLibrary Loan requests”. Then complete the form.

After submitting your request, you will be able to view the details in your library account on FindIt@Bham. Your request will be processed by Document Supply, who will get in touch with you if they need more information to action your request.

You will receive an email either containing a link to an electronic version of an article/chapter or informing you that the item is ready to collect.

You can request books, articles, reports, conference proceedings, international theses as well as other materials. Please be aware you may only order one article per journal issue or one chapter per book due to copyright regulations.

Some older or more expensive items may be loaned to us for consultation use in the library only.

Electronic theses online

Requests for most UK Doctoral dissertations should be made via EThOS, a service offered by the British Library. You should only place an interlibrary loan request for UK PhD thesis if Ethos is unable to supply a copy. 

You will receive an email when the article is ready for you to download.

Journal articles obtained from the British Library will be delivered to you in electronic format. Articles are supplied under the Library Privilege Service to avoiding incurring copyright fees - this means they cannot be stored electronically or forwarded to anyone else. The document may only be printed once and will only be available to download for a period of 30 days.

To download articles you will need to register for British Library 'On Demand' (a link will be sent with your article). You will need Adobe Reader version 10 or later installed on your device. If your web browser has an inbuilt PDF viewer you will need to disable it before you can read the document. You should also download the British Library test document before attempting to download your article.

All articles requested will be delivered electronically unless you specifically request a paper copy.

Books

Book requests must be collected from the Library. Loanable items can be collected from the Main Library Smartlockers while reference use only items will be held in the Allport Room. Items can also be collected from our site libraries.

We aim to create your request within 2 working days of submission. Following this:

• Electronic Articles can normally be obtained in 2-3 working days.
• Books, conference proceedings and theses take on average 2-6 weeks.

It can take longer to locate a supply library for older or more obscure material as it may be necessary to apply to a series of libraries in turn. Print material obtained from outside the UK may also take longer.

Most items will be loaned to us for a period of 3-4 weeks. If you require a renewal please contact documentsupply@contacts.bham.ac.uk

 

This message will be displayed if you have exceeded your quota or if there is something else on your library account preventing you placing requests. Please contact us at 

documentsupply@contacts.bham.ac.uk if you are unsure why this message is being displayed or want to place additional requests beyond your quota. Quotas for all users can be found above.