Get Help: Interlibrary Loan

"Borrowing," "DocDel," and "Lending"

Borrowing processes are those where students, faculty, staff and others at SUNY Potsdam request materials that are obtained from supplying (or lending) libraries.

A borrowing request becomes a Document Delivery (or DocDel) request when the material requested is obtained 1.) by a non-library supplier (such as a commercial vendor), 2.) online from a freely available resource, or 3.) from the local library’s own collection.

Lending processes are those where our SUNY Potsdam ILL supplies materials to other libraries.

"Borrower" and "Lender" 

Traditionally, borrower or borrowing library is terminology for the library requesting library material, while lender or lending library refers to the loaning library. More and more, however, the language is shifting to requester and supplier.

"Loans" vs "Articles"

A loan is any requested ILL material that is shipped to a borrowing library and then returned to the supplying library, almost always a physical item.

An article (or copy) is any requested ILL material that is reproduced with a copy sent to the borrowing library, nothing to return. These days, articles are almost always scanned/reproduced digitally and delivered electronically. An article, in ILL terminology, can be a literal article, a book chapter or an entire dissertation.  

ILL is managed with the ILLiad software suite and database. ILLiad processing is complicated and should not be attempted without one-on-one training with ILL staff. Small mistakes in ILLiad processing can become large problems, sometimes resulting in lost library materials. The IDS Project offers many educational resources, including a mentoring service.