Interlibrary Loan provides material for scholarly research by Valdosta State University faculty, staff, and students that is not held by our collection by borrowing it through the ILLIAD system, which accesses Worldcat.  Recognizing that our public library collection has limits and our own collection of popular reading material cannot satisfy all needs, we also fill requests for recreational reading and personal interests of faculty members and students, such as novels in foreign languages, spelunking, and other pursuits.

Tips on Making a Request

Check our GIL-Find catalog before filling out a request form.

Log in with your Blazeview user name and password at:  https://valdosta.illiad.oclc.org/illiad/logon.html

If it is your first time, you will need to fill in an account form. Otherwise, you can go directly the Book Link, and fill in the online request form. Be as complete as possible. And if the book has more than one edition, an ISBN # or Worldcat accession # is a great help in assuring you get the edition that you want.

After you have finished filling out the Book and other Format request form, click the “Submit Request” button.  We require that you fill out a separate request form for each item you want, since the ILLIAD system is not set up to handle multiple requests on one form.

OR

You may order books or other returnable materials directly from Worldcat by using the Request Item through Interlibrary loan button on any Worldcat record. Clicking on this button will open a new window, and you can log into your ILLIAD account, where the citation information will be transferred to the request form for you. All you have to do is click the “Submit Request” button at the bottom of the page.

How Long Will It Take to Receive It and Where Do I Get It?

Books borrowed from within the University System of Georgia usually take about 5-10 days to arrive.

Books from out of state can take 7-14 days. Materials that are old, rare, extremely popular, are types of material that are more difficult to get (genealogical publications, DVDs, CDs), or are at major research libraries such as the Library of Congress or the New York Public Library, can take 3—6 weeks.

Local students and graduate students come to the main Circulation Desk to pick up materials after being notified of their arrival by e-mail.

Campus faculty and staff will have ILL returnable material, as well as returnable material from our own collection delivered to the departmental office where they pick up their mail within 48 hours. 

Distance Education Students who live outside Lowndes County will have ILL returnable materials and returnable materials from the VSU collection mailed to them. We pay for shipment via 2 day UPS, but patrons are responsible for paying return shipment via a method than can be tracked (USPS, UPS, or Fedex).

Length of Loan Period

The lending library stipulates length of loan period, which can range from four weeks to three months with possibility for renewal to sixteen weeks with four weeks renewal. You can request renewals through your ILLIAD account up until the due date; if you wait till after it is overdue, you must contact our office to request a renewal since the renewal button in ILLIAD won’t work if it is overdue. New due dates are generally received within 48 hours and posted to your ILLIAD account. Renewal periods can range between 2-3 months, depending on the library.

Lost Material Charges

If a book or other returnable item has not been returned in one month after the due date, a hold for the amount of the replacement cost will be placed in the Circulation Department on the patron’s library account, in addition to the automatic hold on the patron’s ILLIAD account.  The hold on the account at the Circulation Department prevents a patron from registering for or dropping classes, or requesting transcripts. The hold on the patron’s ILLIAD account prevents them from requesting any more items via ILLIAD. However, if a patron has still not returned an overdue book or returnable item by a week before the end of classes, our overdue process is accelerated and a hold will be placed much more quickly.

Limits on Loan Requests

Items that may be difficult to obtain or take longer to get are the following:

  • Reference books (if there is a chapter you want, please specify. Otherwise, it may take longer than normal to get, if we can get it at all, especially if it is part of a multi-volume set.)
  • Genealogical books (books are often out of print, held by few libraries, and in special collections. So provide names or other information you are looking for so we can request photocopies from these books, since it will often be the only way we can get the information you want.)
  • Old, fragile or rare books more than 125 years old. Don’t be surprised if we send you the link to a free edition of it as an e-book on the internet.
  • DVDs for instructional purposes. (Many libraries in the University System do not loan DVDs, so we frequently have to borrow them from out of state.)

Items that we do not take requests for:

  • Textbooks. We provide suggestions about where you can purchase or rent copies of your books at a lower price. Also, try asking your professor if they can place a copy of the book on reserve in the library.
  • Popular DVDs, unless a faculty member needs it for a class. We are not a substitute for subscribing to Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu.
  • Bound journals or individual journal issues. Very few libraries are willing to loan these due to the fear of loss or damage through the mail, so it is highly unlikely it will be filled.