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Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Services

Intro to using the library's Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Services.

What is Interlibrary Loan (ILL)?

Our Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service is a resource sharing service that lets you request books, journals and other materials not available in the Gallucci-Cirio Library's databases, print and online collections from other libraries. This service is available free to Fitchburg State students and faculty, including those in an extended campus or distance learning course/program, and staff. Through your FalconSearch account you can place requests, see when items are due, and so on.

Please keep in mind that an Interlibrary Loan request for a physical item such as a book takes an average of 1 to 2 weeks and the average time for an electronic article/document takes 1 business day from the time you submit the request until you receive the item, but it may take longer. To request an item through Interlibrary Loan, click on the Interlibrary Loan link from the Library's website (Under the Quick Links menu on the homepage or the "My Library Accounts" link in the top bar), from within our FalconSearch by clicking on the provided "Get it from other Locations", or by clicking on the "Get Article" link from within the databases (note: name of link varies depending on the database).

What is Document Delivery?

The Document Delivery service has several components:

Delivery of Electronic Documents

  • All students, faculty and staff receive automatic online delivery of any electronic documents, such as articles, that we get for you from another library through the Interlibrary Loan service. These are are delivered to you as either an email attachment or a link to download the item.
     
  • Distance Learning and Extended Campus students and faculty may also place requests through your FalconSearch account using the Interlibrary Loan/Resource Sharing request form to request items such as articles or book chapters from our library's print collections. The print item is scanned into a PDF which is delivered to you as either an email attachment or a link to download the item.

Delivery of Physical Items

When we borrow a physical item, such as a book, for you from another library through the Interlibrary Loan service, it is delivered to our library and is available for you to pick up at the Circulation Desk - this is the default delivery method for all accounts. All students, faculty and staff receive an automatic notification that the item is ready for you to pick up.
 

  • Distance Learning and Extended Campus students and faculty have the option to:
    • Change their "Pickup Location" on the request form to "Home Address" to have physical items from our library and from the Interlibrary Loan service be mailed to their home.  
    • Use their FalconSearch account to use the Interlibrary Loan/Resource Sharing request form to request items from our library's physical collections be mailed to their home address instead of coming into the library to check them out.
  • On-campus faculty and staff have the option to:
    • Change their "Pickup Location" on the request form to "Work Address" to have physical items from our library and from the Interlibrary Loan service be delivered to their campus office.  
    • Use their FalconSearch account to use the Interlibrary Loan/Resource Sharing request form to request items from our library's physical collections be delivered to their campus office instead of coming into the library to check them out.

Contact Us

To ask questions or receive guidance about our Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Services, you may speak to anyone at the library front desk, call (978) 665-3063 or email interlibrary@fitchburgstate.edu.