The British Library are now offering the electronic delivery of Inter-Library Loans, and we are implementing the service at York St John in the coming months. Unless you've signed up for the pilot scheme (more on that below), you won't notice any changes yet but will before the end of the year. Our colleague in inter-library loans, Katherine Hughes, has highlighted below some aspects of the new service that will be of interest to researchers.
How do electronic
inter-library loans work?
Participants in our pilot scheme, running at the moment and
open to staff and PhD students, can receive electronic ILLs. To receive ILLs
electronically, you will need to sign up for an account with the British
Library. This is a quick process taking around five minutes. You can then order
ILLs via the form on the library website, and will receive an email to your
university email account with a link to download the article. Once you’ve
downloaded the PDF, you will just need to sign in with your new British Library
account details to access the article. For PCs and some other devices, it’s
possible to ‘remember me on this computer’, so you only have to log in the
first time you download an article to that device.
If you’re interested in taking part in the pilot scheme,
please email interlibrary@yorksj.ac.uk
and the Inter-Library Loans staff will register you for the scheme and send you
more information.
What are the
advantages of electronic ILLs?
- They’re faster – in the majority of cases, receiving ILLs electronically is much quicker than getting a paper copy. The British Library will send the link to the article directly to you rather than having to wait for it to be printed or posted. Where the item you’ve requested is available electronically at the British Library, they can send it to you very rapidly, within a day or two of your request being placed. Other articles might take a little longer, but are still likely to be sent to you within a working week.
- You can keep multiple copies of the file on multiple devices– It’s possible to save multiple copies of the file onto different devices. The DRM (Digital Rights Management) software on the PDF means that only you can log on to view it, but it doesn’t stop you from making copies.
- You can still print the article – it’s possible to print the article out once while maintaining multiple electronic copies.
Are all items
available via electronic ILL?
Electronic ILL is available on any journal article and book
chapter requests ordered through the British Library, where we get the majority
of our ILLs. It’s not currently available on books, which need to be borrowed
on loan.
Sometimes, we are unable to acquire specific items from the
British Library and instead need to order them through another university
library. Some libraries will only be able to supply the copy in print format,
but where possible, we will send these items to you electronically. When
available electronically from another library, we will usually be able to send
an unencrypted PDF so there will be no need to log in. If only available in
print, we will provide a paper copy via your preferred method, collection or
postal delivery. Please indicate when completing the ILL form which delivery method
you would prefer if the item is unavailable electronically.
