Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery

Not all the materials you will need for your research will be available at the Gary Library. When this occurs, you can use our interlibrary loan and document delivery service to request items that we do not own, and we will work with a network of other libraries to obtain those items for you.

How to Request Items

Interlibrary loan requests can now be made electronically via ILLiad. ILLiad allows you to request, manage, and access all of our Interlibrary Loan materials online by logging in with your MyUnion ID and password. The first time you log in, you will be asked to provide some basic contact information. This information is only required the first time you use ILLiad. View our Basic ILLiad Instructions for more details on using ILLiad.

Once you are logged into ILLiad, you will be able to select an electronic form for article, book, or media requests. When you are searching our databases, look for the link "Submit Interlibrary Loan Request" which will appear when an article is not available full text in our databases. Clicking on this link will bring you directly into ILLiad and pre-populate a request form for you.

Interlibrary loan requests for circulating items such as books do not cost anything, but you will be responsible for the return shipping costs. Photocopies for article requests are charged at a rate of 10 cents per page, but they are yours to keep. Interlibrary loan charges are billed to your library account, and you will be sent a monthly invoice.

How Long

The typical loan period is 30 days, but the loan period is set by the lending library and may vary. Please keep in mind when requesting library materials via interlibrary loan that you will lose some borrowing time due to shipping. You may request one interlibrary loan renewal by contacting us at least three days prior to the due date. You will be notified of the new due date if a renewal is possible.

Purchase Requests

Many times we will intercept an interlibrary loan request and purchase the book for the library's collection. When this occurs, you then get the full 45 day lending period. We also welcome any purchase recommendations that you might have.