Requesting books & articles through interlibrary loan

How do you get a book or article that's not in our collection? You did a search in WorldCat Discovery and found a great source, but it's not "Held by Seton Hill University." What then? First we'll go through the process for a book, and then we'll show you how to request an article. 

For a video demonstration, visit https://youtu.be/ipJ-di-yC34 

Get a Book

First, make sure that you're looking at a record for a print book (not an ebook). Libraries usually aren't allowed to lend electronic materials to each other.

Click on the title of the item you want:

Look under "Availability/Holdings" for the "Request Item" button and click it (don't worry about the list of libraries that have it; that's our job).

On the next page, scroll down a bit to the contact information form and fill it in; then hit "Submit."

You will be taken to a confirmation screen that informs you that "your request has been placed." You will receive an email from the library when the book arrives and is ready for you to pick up. This typically takes 1-2 weeks for books. 

If you are asking for something that may be rare (such as an older item, a limited edition, or something in a foreign language), you may want to look at the list of holding libraries just to make sure that several libraries own the item you need. If a book is only held by two or three libraries in the world, the odds of our being able to borrow a copy will be low and you may need to find a source that is more widely-held.

Get an Article

The process is similar for requesting an article, but there is one extra step. You’ll want to double-check that we don’t have a subscription to the journal in our collection. You can’t always tell just by looking at the record you found in the database. 

To do that, you’ll need to use our Full Text Finder tool. It’s best to open it up in a new browser tab so you can refer back to the article record. Click on the Full Text Finder tab on the library’s website. 

Now enter the JOURNAL (not article) title into the search bar at the top of the main Full Text Finder page. In this case, I’m trying to locate the Psychologist-Manager Journal.

If nothing shows up as a result of your search, double-check your spelling, and then proceed to request the article through interlibrary loan by going back to WorldCat Discovery and clicking that purple "Request item through interlibrary loan" button and filling in the form that it opens up. You’ll get an email in two or three business days and it will have a link for you to download a PDF copy of the article. 

If we do have a subscription, open up the "Full Text Access" area and choose the access link that covers the date range of the article you need. 

Then open the year that your article was published (again, you can find this information on the WorldCat Discovery record page in your other browser tab). 

Open up the issue that contains your article. In this example, we don't have volume and issue information, so start at the top and review the contents of each issue until you find the article you need. 

The full text of the article should be available for you to download. 

If you have any trouble with this process, please contact the library.