Interlibrary Loan School of Medicine

Logon ILL Express home First-Time Users Help ILL Express FAQ

ILL Policies and Procedures for the School of Medicine Library Table of Contents Interlibrary Loan Service and Patron Eligibility Requesting Materials Cost Faculty Information Available Materials Items Not Available Through Interlibrary Loan Time Required Delivery Options Borrowing Conditions and Return of Materials Renewals Fair Use and Copyright Law Interlibrary Loan Service and Patron Eligibility Interlibrary loan (ILL) is a service through which biomedical books or journal articles not owned by the School of Medicine Library may be obtained from other libraries or commercial document suppliers. This service is available to School of Medicine faculty members, students, staff, and South Carolina health care practitioners. Services are also available to Non-affiliates and For-profit organizations. There is a charge for this service! Please see the cost section for a breakdown of our charges. The number of interlibrary loan requests in progress at one time is not limited to any of our patrons. If there are special circumstances surrounding your research, our Interlibrary Loan Specialist will be happy to discuss them with you. Please check SCarlit, the catalog of the School of Medicine Library, and our Electronic Journal page to see if the Library already owns the materials you need. The Interlibrary Loan Department is located in room 101H of the Medical Library Building, Bldg. 101 on the School of Medicine Campus. The office is open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. You may contact the ILL staff by phone at (803) 733-3347 or by e-mail at ill@uscmed.sc.edu. Back to Top Requesting Materials Please use ILL Express! to place all interlibrary loan requests. Check SCarlit, the catalog of the School of Medicine Library, and our Electronic Journal page to see if the Library owns the books or journals you need; it's faster and cheaper for you to copy articles we own rather than relying on Interlibrary Loan. The staff at Circulation or the Reference Desk for help in obtaining full journal titles. If you need assistance with SCarlit or with any of the online databases, please contact the Reference Desk at 733-3361, or visit them between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. You can also email questions to asklib@med.sc.edu. In accordance with federal copyright law, you must place a separate request for each item you need, even if the journal articles you need are on sequential pages in the same issue. If you are requesting an article from Medline (either via OVID or PubMed), always include the Medline Unique Identifier (UI) or the PubMed Identification Number (PMID). These numbers enable us to quickly request the correct article for you and cuts down on the time it takes for your request to be filled. If possible, include your citation source in the Citation Information field. In the case of electronic sources, include the name of the database you used or the URL of the web page or database containing your reference. If your citation came from a book or an article, please provide the complete bibliographic information, including page numbers. If you are unsure of the required information, please consult a reference librarian. Please fill out the request form as completely as possible so that we can provide quick, efficient service. For more information, see ILL Express! help page. Back to Top Cost Interlibrary loan service is provided for a minimal fee:   Item Requested School of Medicine Faculty, Staff and Students Loansome Doc Patrons Health Care Practitioners Non-affiliated, for-profit patrons, Loansome Doc for-profit patrons Journal article or book $4.00 $7.00 $7.00 $15.00   Patrons must pay for any overdue or replacement fees billed by the lender if an item is lost or returned late. Back to Top Faculty Information You may wish to designate an authorized user to pick up materials for you. Authorized users may also place requests for you using your account. Please do not have assistants use their own ILL Express! accounts for faculty orders. You may add or delete authorized users through the ILL Express! Main Menu by clicking on the Change User Information button near the bottom of the menu. If you have any questions or concerns about Faculty Express! services for faculty, you may contact the Interlibrary Loan department at 733-3347, or by e-mail at ill@uscmed.sc.edu. Back to Top Available Materials The Interlibrary Loan Department staff will attempt to obtain any biomedical materials that you may need for your research. Usually, these are books and journal articles (photocopies), but can also include microforms, dissertations and theses, foreign material, government documents, and industry standards. Back to Top Time Required We can usually obtain material within one to three days of the request date, depending on which library owns it and can send the item. This includes the time required for the request to be placed by us on the Docline or OCLC interlibrary loan requesting system. Once a library agrees to provide a loan or photocopy to us, that library has to retrieve the item from its collection, make a photocopy when necessary, process it for shipping, and ship the item. Time in transit to the School of Medicine depends on the method the lending library chooses for shipping. We receive many of our photocopies via the Internet using a system called Ariel. This technology allows interlibrary loan staff to scan articles, images and other documents into a computer and send them over the Internet to another Ariel workstation. Articles sent by this method may arrive within a day or two. Books and other materials are usually shipped by fourth class mail, a much slower method, and can possibly be obtained within a week's time. Back to Top Delivery Options For Photocopies: The method we use for any particular item depends on the nature of the item and the options you choose with ILL Express!. The options you may choose are: Hold for pickup - the item will be held at the School of Medicine Library Circulation Desk Mail to address - photocopies can be mailed to your home or campus address. Electronic delivery if possible - the article may be delivered to you electronically. Electronic delivery is possible only when the lending library sends the article to us electronically. This option requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader software, which is available from Adobe at no charge. You will also need either Internet Explorer or Netscape. You may have problems reading the files if you are using Netscape version 4.5. Earlier versions and later versions of Netscape should work; however, we recommend using the most recent version of your browser of choice. To download the latest version of Netscape, visit the Netscape Download Page. You can read more about electronic delivery in the Electronic Delivery section on the ILL Express! Help page In Library Use Only - some material is fragile or rare, and lending libraries often designate these items In Library Use Only. Microforms are also usually designated In Library Use Only. You will not be allowed to take such items out of the library. These restrictions are set by the lending library and we are bound to follow them. We cannot change these conditions, and we ask patrons to honor them. For Books and Other Loans: Books and other returnable items will be held at the School of Medicine Library Circulation Desk. Note: You will be asked to sign and date a loan slip. You may designate an authorized user to pick up materials for you. For more information, see the Designating an Authorized User section of the ILL Express! Help page. Back to Top Borrowing Conditions and Return of Materials Materials obtained through interlibrary loan are for your exclusive use and are your responsibility from the time they are picked up at the Circulation Desk until they are returned. We recommend that you return your materials directly to the Interlibrary Loan Department during office hours (8:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.) or to the Circulation Desk after hours. You will be responsible for replacement costs of lost material and cost of damages billed to us by lenders. Abuse of the interlibrary loan service can result in the loss of your interlibrary loan borrowing privileges and also may result in suspension of your circulation privileges. If you are a USC student, your registration activity may also be placed on hold for failure to return interlibrary loan books. Failure to return materials on time can damage the library's relationship with the libraries from which we acquire materials and may prevent us from borrowing from those libraries in the future. The lending library, not our Interlibrary Loan Department staff, sets the conditions for each loan. We cannot change these conditions, and we ask patrons to honor them. The lending library may restrict the use of materials to use within the library only, and may also disallow copying or renewal. Restrictions are noted on the ILL Express! label on the front of your borrowed item. The lending library has the right to recall a loan at any time. The due date for loans is determined by the lending library. Materials should be returned to the Interlibrary Loan office or the Circulation Desk, on or before the date indicated on the item. Do not return interlibrary loan material to the drop box. Do not remove the ILL Express! identification stickers that are placed on all borrowed items. We need them so that we can correctly identify your materials and process them for return to the lending institutions. Back to Top Renewals Check the ILL Express! label on the front of your borrowed item. If it does not say NO RENEWALS, a renewal may be requested using ILL Express!. The final decision on granting a renewal rests with the lending library. Renewals are available no sooner than five (5) days before the original due date. For more information, see the Renewals section of the ILL Express! help page. Back to Top Copyright and Fair Use Fair use, as determined by U.S. Copyright law, Title 17, Copyrights, United States Code section 107, allows for the reproduction of copyrighted material for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research. The categories used in determining fair use are: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. U.S. copyright law, Title 17, Copyrights, United States Code, strictly limits the ability of the Interlibrary Loan staff to obtain journal articles. Under section 108(d), "Limitation on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives," libraries are authorized to furnish a photocopy. 108(d)reads: "The rights of reproduction and distribution under this section apply to a copy, made from the collection of a library or archives where the user makes his or her request or from that of another library or archives, of no more than one article or other contribution to a copyrighted collection or periodical issue, or to a copy or phonorecord of a small part of any other copyrighted work, if- (1) the copy or phonorecord becomes the property of the user, and the library or archives has had no notice that the copy or phonorecord would be used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research; and (2) the library or archives displays prominently, at the place where orders are accepted, and includes on its order form, a warning of copyright in accordance with requirements that the Register of Copyrights shall prescribe by regulation." If a user requests more than one article from one issue of a journal, the Interlibrary Loan Department staff must pay a copyright fee through the Copyright Clearance Center or must purchase the article from a commercial vendor. If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. The Interlibrary Loan Department staff reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in our judgment, fulfillment of that order would involve violation of the copyright law. The National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU) has developed a set of guidelines to assist libraries in fulfilling their duties while adhering to copyright law. CONTU guidelines (or the "suggestion of five") permits the copying during a calendar year of no more than five articles from a single journal title, not owned by the library, dated within the past five years. This means that the Interlibrary Loan Department staff can order a total of only 5 articles from a single journal title dated within the past 5 years regardless of how many users request articles from the same journal title. For articles obtained in excess of this number, the Library must pay a fee to the Copyright Clearance Center or must purchase the articles from a commercial vendor. The Interlibrary Loan Department staff reserves the right to restrict such purchases. If you are interested in learning more about these issues, you can visit the Copyright and Fair Use site hosted by Stanford University Libraries. Back to Top