Every request costs the Library £11.60 for a book and £7.50 for a photocopy so please only ask for items which are essential to your research or study.
You may have up to eight requests in progress at one time

Distance Learning Students should contact DiLIS to arrange an inter-library loan if they are unable to visit the campus to collect the item in person. There may be a charge for this service.

Undergraduates should only need to request ILL items in the final year of study. All requests must be signed by an authorised member of academic staff in your school. This is usually your tutor or a lecturer. Print an ILL request form here:

Postgraduates (taught) may request items through ILL, but all requests must be signed by an authorised member of academic staff in your school. This is usually your tutor or a lecturer. Print an ILL request form here:

Postgraduates (research) and academic staff do not require an authorised signature on ILL requests. They can also submit ILL requests online.

Making a request

Check the Library catalogue to ensure that the Library does not hold the item required

• Fill in a separate green ILL form for each item
  Forms are available from the Ask Me Desk at the Support Hub
• Include: your Name, University number, Department, University email address and full details about the item required
• Choose your preferred delivery option
  • Final Year Undergraduate Students: For journal articles or book chapters, you can choose to have the item delivered to your department, or kept in the Library to pick up.
  • Academic Staff and Postgraduate Students (Research and Masters): For journal articles or book chapters, you can choose to have the item delivered to your department or kept in the Library to pick up. Alternatively, you can have the articles delivered by Secure Electronic Delivery.
• Read and sign the copyright declaration
• Write legibly as Library staff have to key in details accurately
• Undergraduates and taught postgraduates must have each request signed by their tutor
• Completed requests should be handed in at the Ask Me Desk at the Support Hub

Please check the following points before you submit any Inter-Library Loans

• Have you checked that the journal/book/conference paper is definitely not in the University Library? Use the Library Catalogue
• Have you checked if a journal is available electronically? Look at the e-journals list on the web
• Will the contents of the article add to the knowledge you already have?
• What is the date and length of the article? - Two pages for £6.12 may not be a good use of resources
• Is the article from a reputable professional journal?
• Is the article in a language you can read?
• Have you read an abstract? - use the relevant databases to find abstracts

 Online Submission of requests

All members of academic staff, and those studying for a degree by research (PhD, MPhil, PsycD etc.) can submit requests via the online service on the Library Catalogue:

• Go to the Library Homepage and select 'Catalogue'. Select 'Interlibrary Loan' from the top of the page.
• Enter your Borrower Number & your Library PIN
• Input request details
• For journal articles or book chapters, the item will be delivered either to your department as a photocopy (default option) or by Secure Electronic Delivery (SED)
  • Secure Electronic Delivery: please indicate clearly on the form that you require SED for each individual request
• Read the Copyright Declaration and check the box to agree the terms  and conditions
• Click the Submit button at the end of the screen

NB: if you have a block on your account due to outstanding fines from overdue items, you will not be able to make an online request. Please clear the fines from your account. In the meantime, you may make requests using the standard ILL request form, available from the Ask Me Desk at the Support Hub in the Library.

 Secure Electronic Delivery (SED)

• Available to all Academic Staff and Postgraduate Students (Research and Taught)
  • Postgraduate (Taught): requests are accepted only on the green ILL request forms.
  • Academic Staff and Postgraduate Students (Research): ILL requests can be submitted either online, or using the green ILL request forms
• Please check that your computer can receive SEDs.
• You can request journal articles or book chapters to be delivered by SED, but not full books or journal issues, which are available in hard copy only.
• The Secure Electronic Delivery service uses printed journals and books as its source material. Therefore if a publication is ONLY available online, the British Library will be unable to deliver a copy due to publisher licence restrictions.
• When your item is ready you will receive an email containing instructions from the British Library and the link to your document(s). 
• Please note that you can activate the link and print the article only once, but can view the document from your bookshelf in Adobe Digital Editions for up to 14 days from the date the British Library sent the article out
• The electronic copy is stored on the British Library server and will be available for 14 days from the day of being posted there by the BL. After 14 days the file will be deleted. The file will not be re-opened by the British Library. Any file not accessed in time will have to be re-requested from the British Library at a further cost.
• You may print only one paper copy, from which you may not make any further copies.
• You may not make any further electronic copies or convert the file into any other format.
• You may not cut and paste or otherwise alter the text.
• You should take into consideration any time away (vacation, or travel for work purposes) that may result in you being unavailable to access and print out the document within the 14 day time period, BEFORE submitting a request for SED.
• We will not submit the request to the British Library until we have a signed copyright declaration form.

Please contact the Inter-Library Loans department in the University Library with details of any problems as soon as possible, and we will contact the British Library on your behalf.

 Required Software

You will need any version of Adobe Reader from version 4, and a FileOpen plug-in – these are available to download for free. If your school/department has restrictions on downloading and installing software, please pass this information to your IT support team.

Once you have Adobe Reader set up, you need to install the FileOpen plug-in. The easiest way to do this is to download the test document available on the British Library website:
http://fileopen.bl.uk:8008/FileOpenFreeLink-1.0/entryPage.do

We strongly recommend that you do this before you try to download a document delivered by secure electronic delivery

Please note that SED does not currently work with old versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you have these versions installed, please uninstall them and re-install a more current version available from:
http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/

Copyright declaration forms

The University Library must be in possession of a personally signed copyright declaration form (on paper or card) for each written request before we can submit it to the British Library in order to comply with the rules of Library Privilege - which enables us to make ILL requests without paying a copyright fee to the publisher.

For legislative purposes these forms must be kept for six years after the end of the year the copying took place. Therefore to aid storage, we require the form in the standardized formats provided by the University Library - the traditional A5 card ILL form and the A5 pdf paper version of the copyright declaration form, available for users of the online submission service.

How long will it take?

Most items come from the British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC) in Yorkshire and are received within a week once ordered, but items will take longer if:

• There is a waiting list for the BLDSC's copy
• BLDSC has to buy a copy
• The item is not held at BLDSC and we have to apply elsewhere
• If the reference is incomplete or inaccurate you will be asked to check your source again
• Items requested by SED will take a similar amount of time as hard copy requests to process, but will save on mailing time.

When the item arrives

Items for retention

The print copies of journal articles/book chapters are for you to keep. They will either be sent to your Department or kept at the Support Hub in the Library (you will be notified by email) for you to collect, depending on which delivery option you requested.

We can contact you at your home address, or send photocopies if you provide first class stamps and an up-to-date address with each request.

Items for loan

You will be notified by e-mail when the item arrives. All items are collected from the Support Hub, please show your campus card.
Most items, even journals, may be taken out of the Library

Some types of material may be used only in the Library:

• Theses and dissertations
• Old, valuable or rare items
• Items from certain libraries e.g. Cambridge and Oxford
• Books containing disks/CDs
• All items borrowed from abroad

Loan periods and renewals

BLDSC lends items for 5 weeks. The lending library may recall an item after 3 weeks if it is required by another user.

A fine of 30p per day will be charged on all overdue and recalled overdue Inter Library Loan items.
Any permitted Inter Library Loan renewals are charged at £4.30 each. The British Library reserves the right to recall the item at any time.

Failure to return books by the due date may result in an additional charge being imposed by the lending library
If an item is not returned or lost, you will be invoiced for the cost of a replacement. BLDSC has a minimum charge of £154.88 VAT.

For further information

Ask at the Ask Me Desk at the Support Hub. Telephone (01483) 689234/ x 9234
Email: ill@surrey.ac.uk
InterLibrary Loan staff are available during office hours