The Interlibrary Loan unit provides service to the University at Albany’s current students, faculty, staff, and emeritus faculty. Courtesy borrowing privileges, alumni borrowing privileges, and Empire State College borrowing agreements do not include interlibrary loan privileges. Individuals from other academic institutions, including SUNY institutions, must use the interlibrary loan services of their institution’s library; all other patrons should contact their local public library.

This service is subsidized by the University Libraries, and there is no cost to patrons for Interlibrary Loan orders. However, due to the increasing costs of resource sharing, Interlibrary Loan staff contact patrons about expensive requests and suggest alternatives.

Materials can be requested through ILLiad, the software used by the University Libraries for Interlibrary Loan and UA Delivery Services.

• Faculty, emeritus faculty, staff, and graduate students: No Limits.
• Undergraduate students limited to 25 active requests at a time.

NOTE: Patrons planning on submitting more than 50 loan requests for physical materials (i.e. books, A/V, etc.) during a single semester are encouraged to contact the Interlibrary Loan Department before submitting requests.

The time can vary, depending on the type of material being requested and from where the material must be obtained.

• Book requests: one to two weeks.
• Journal article/book chapter requests: two to four days.
• More difficult requests: may take longer for Interlibrary Loan staff to acquire. Examples of difficult to acquire materials include best selling titles, Audio/Visual materials, CD-ROMs, books published within the past year, books published prior to 1900, materials available only from international libraries, and materials that are typically non-circulating (reference books, rare books, etc.).

• Journal articles/book chapters: delivered electronically to your ILLiad account.
• Books, AV materials, and other physical items: held at the circulation desk at your designated pickup library.
• East Campus Faculty/Staff may request items be delivered to the their offices via campus mail by choosing “East Campus” as their pick up location. (Please note, office delivery of Interlibrary Loan materials is not available for faculty and staff located on the uptown or downtown campuses.)
• Distance education students and patrons with disabilities may have materials mailed to their home addresses. 
• To check the status of your ILL request, please log into ILLiad to view a list of your outstanding requests and the statuses for those requests.

• Loan periods – vary and are set by the lending libraries; the average loan period is four weeks with one four-week renewal.
• Renewals – are at the discretion of the lending library unless the paperwork included with your item states “NO RENEWALS.”
• Recalls – Interlibrary Loan items are subject to recall by the lending library, so due dates can change at any time.
• Returns – Prompt return of interlibrary loan materials is expected, so that the Libraries can continue to maintain positive relationships with resource sharing partner libraries. Pick up and return borrowed materials to the Circulation desk of the University Library, the Dewey Library, or the Science Library. Do not use library book drops for returns.
• Fines – Interlibrary Loan materials do not accrue daily overdue fines. A $10 processing fine is charged for grossly overdue items that reach the replacement billing stage.
• Replacement charges will be imposed for grossly overdue, lost, or damaged items which have reached the billing stage.

Libraries that cannot submit requests via OCLC may use our institutional interlibrary loan request form. To create an account, please call 518-442-3569.

Individuals not affiliated with the University at Albany wishing to borrow materials from the University's collections must make an interlibrary loan request through their home library. A home library could be a public, academic, or corporate library.

All circulating materials can be loaned through interlibrary loan.  Our loan period for books and media is sixteen weeks.  Renewals are granted on a case by case basis. Rare materials are subject to special conditions.

There are no lending charges for:

• CDLC libraries
• IDS Project libraries
• RapidILL reciprocal libraries
• LVIS libraries

For all other libraries, lending charges are as follows:

• $15.00 IFM or 1.5 IFLA vouchers for loan or copy