Eligibility
- NIU students, faculty, staff, visiting scholars, retirees and Friends of the NIU Libraries, are able to use interlibrary loan services (ILL).
- Visitor Library Card holders are NOT eligible for ILL services.
Costs
- ILL services are provided free to all eligible patrons.
- Patrons may accrue and are responsible for fees and fines for late, damaged, or lost materials from other institutions. Please see the Departmental Policy above for more information.
Delivery Times
- Books, video, sound recordings, and other loaned materials take an average of 14-21 days to arrive. Articles and other scanned documents may arrive after 3-21 days. At this time, we do not offer a Rush service.
Loan Periods
- Loans for I-Share materials are for 4 weeks with up to 3 renewals (6 renewals for faculty and staff).
- Materials requested through NIUILLiad are loaned for 4 weeks with one possible renewal.
Renewal
- Materials requested via I-Share can be renewed at My Library Account.
- Renewals are granted at the discretion of the lending library. Contact us with questions.
Eligible materials for interlibrary loan
- Eligible: Books, copies of journal articles or book chapters, and microforms.
- Sometimes eligible: CDs, DVDs, and videos.
- Not eligible: Rare, archival, or fragile books, reference books, electronic books, whole issues or volumes of periodicals, software, CD-ROMs.
- NIU Libraries does not interlibrary loan materials it already owns to NIU patrons.
Notifications and Pickup
You will receive an email from the Information Delivery Services (IDS) office when your materials have arrived.
- Articles are available electronically via My Library Account.
- All other materials can be picked up at the Circulation Desk or Branch Campus front desk.
Returning Loaned Materials
- Materials may be returned at the Circulation Desk at any of our libraries or Branch campuses, or at book drops outside Founders Memorial Library.
Fines, fees, and blocked accounts for interlibrary loans
- You may have your library account blocked due to fines and fees owed to other institutions' libraries. You will not be able to request NIU or interlibrary-loan materials until fines and fees are paid.
- Your account may be blocked if:
- 25 I-Share items overdue
- 1 I-Share item recalled and overdue
- 3 I-Share items in "Lost" status (missing due to non-return of item or loss of item)
- 10 "Claims returned" I-Share items (where the item is claimed to be returned but cannot be located)
- 10 I-Share items self-shelved (i.e., not returned through the proper channels)
- $200.00 dollars total in I-Share fines and fees
- View your fines and fees by logging into My Library Account. NIU patrons with I-Share blocks should contact the institutions they loaned materials from.
Questions
Please note that all ILL notifications are sent to official NIU email accounts only.
