Interlibrary Loan Services (ILL)
Use our interlibrary loan services to request items not available locally in our collection, or that you’re having trouble finding.
This service is available to faculty, undergraduates, graduate students, permanent staff, people designated as “proxies” who borrow for faculty members, retired faculty and staff, and visiting scholars.
Our team also provides scans of items in our print collections and departmental delivery for both local items and interlibrary loans.
How to place a request
If you know details for the item you want, you can go straight to filling out a request form.
Log in to ILLiad to place a request
Otherwise, the option to request items through interlibrary loan is built into our systems for finding materials. These will take you to ILLiad and pre-populate the appropriate request form.
- For Catalog items in Library Search that are checked out or unavailable, select Get This and Request a copy from another library
- Anywhere you see an MGet It link or button (such as library databases), select it and then choose request to have a copy delivered
You do not need to know where an item is held to request it, but if you want to gauge its availability, see our tips for using other catalogs to find materials outside of U-M.
What to expect
How long it takes us to fill interlibrary loan requests and how we get them to you depends on format and availability. Physical items also vary in loan length and usage conditions. More about accessing and using your interlibrary loans.
When you get items through interlibrary loan, the processes and expectations for renewals, lost items, and returns are not quite the same as when you check out items from our local collection.
Need help?
Contact us at interlibrary.loan@umich.edu or by phone at 734-764-8584 if you have questions about any of our services or items on your request account (ILLiad).