ENG 431 - The Brontes: Interlibrary Loan

If you have questions about Interlibrary Loan, please contact the Interlibrary Loan Office at 724.946.7049 or mcgillill@westminster.edu.

The Interlibrary Loan Office is located on theground floor of McGill Library, in room G03

Interlibrary Loan Office Hours are Monday-Friday, 8:00am-4:30pm*

*Please note that ILL service is suspended from December 18 to January 5.

Interlibrary Loan is a service of McGill Library for Westminster faculty, students, and staff. This service is available to assist eligible individuals in the completion of their curricular or professional research needs.

Registered patrons can access their online accounts here.

New or First-time users can set up an account here.

Copyright Restrictions on ILL Requests

1. Within any calendar year, Westminster College may not request more than FIVE copies from an individual periodical title published in the current and past four years.  After reaching that threshold, the library will then purchase and/or pay the copyright fees for that title.
2. If a patron requests an interlibrary loan from a periodical to which WC library already subscribes or owns a copy of the source from which they are requesting, it is treated as though the copy is from the library’s own collection under the regular Library Copying Guidelines.
3. Westminster College maintains records of all borrowing requests to which these guidelines apply.  These records are retained until the end of the third complete calendar year in which the respective requests were made.
4. According to Title 17, U.S. Code, a copy or reproduction may not be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.”  
5. Audio-visual material borrowed through interlibrary loan is restricted to personal or classroom use only.

Interlibrary loan (ILL) is a service whereby libraries borrow and lend books, microfilm, and audio-visual material along with supplying journal, magazine, and newspaper articles for library patrons. 

Materials not owned by McGill Library may be borrowed from or supplied by other lending institutions.

Eligible patrons can submit Interlibrary Loan requests for multiple material types through the online form.  

When requesting research materials from other institutions, please have full citation information and check your information for accuracy before submitting your request. Include the source of your citation. If we have a problem with the citation or if the information is incomplete, we may return it to you for further research.

Materials, if available, usually arrive within two to ten days of placing the request.  We will notify you by email when your materials are available.

Articles: Will be available online through your ILLiad account.

Books (and other physical materials): May be picked up at the Circulation Desk in McGill Library, during any hours that the library is open. Materials will be held at the circulation desk for two weeks.

McGill Library will attempt to borrow books and/or supply articles for Westminster College students, faculty, staff, administrators and retired faculty.  The library assumes responsibility for all costs for materials requested for academic purposes.

This service is not provided to the general public.  They should refer to their local public library for assistance.

General Guidelines:

ILL Requests for all materials types are processed in this sequence:

   1.     Students

   2.    Faculty/ staff

   3.    All other requests

The library will not borrow material for students when the research topic can be met using the resources in the local collection.  If that is the case, the interlibrary loan specialist or a librarian will work with the student to find material relevant to the research topic.

The library will not borrow textbooks to students for classes in which they are currently enrolled.

There are NO RENEWALS for borrowed items.  Material must be used within the borrowing period set by the lending library.

A loan item of the same date and publisher cannot be requested twice in the same semester.

Time permitting, the library will attempt to borrow materials that are for non-academic purposes (leisure reading, genealogical material, etc.). The borrower is responsible for any fee imposed by the lending library and will be notified of any charges before the request is processed. In the case of leisure reading materials, borrowers can only request one title at a time.

Overdue material:

Fines are assessed at $5.00 a day for material which is borrowed from another institution. 

1. All interlibrary loan fines must be paid and processed through the Interlibrary Loan Office (8:00am-4:30pm, Monday-Friday). 
2. Individual accounts must be paid in order for patrons (faculty, students, staff, administrators, and retired faculty) to pick up any new interlibrary loan items. 
3. At the end of each semester, student fines will be sent to the Business Office and applied to individual accounts.

Lost/ Damaged Material:

Material which WC has borrowed from another institution and which is subsequently declared lost or damaged will be replaced.  The library prepares a bill, listing the replacement costs charged by the lending library.  Under the doctrine of replevin, the library still owns the book and can recover it from the person who paid the replacement fee or a subsequent owner even if the subsequent owner has done nothing illegal.  Legal title does not pass to the person who paid the fee because the library did not intend to sell the item.  The replacement fees are not refunded to the borrowing library.