InterLibrary Loan (ILL) is a service that faculty, staff, and students of the MUSC community may use to obtain material that is needed and is not available in MUSC collections.
The InterLibrary Loan office is located on the fourth floor of the Colbert Library and is open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. The office does not submit or fulfill requests in the evenings and on weekends.
Requests will only be accepted through the InterLibrary Loan and Document Delivery System (ILLiad). When requesting material, please complete all fields as accurately and completely as possible. Failure to include basic citation information will delay the request.
Turnaround time for internal document delivery is within 24 hours M-F for the first 5 requests. Depending on volume of requests, we cannot guarantee that your additional requests will be fulfilled within 24 hours, although we will make every effort to do so.
Turnaround time to borrow from another library is typically 24-48 hours for articles (depending on the time of day requested) and 7-10 days for books. If for any reason there is a delay, we will contact you via email.
You will be notified via your MUSC email account when requested material is available. Articles delivered electronically will be available through your ILLiad account. Physical items can be picked up on the 4th floor of the Library with your MUSC ID.
IMPORTANT: Journal articles that MUSC Library does not owned can be requested 5 times per year if published within the last 5 years. If more than 5 articles from a journal are requested, ILL must pay copyright fees ranging from $20 to over $100 per article. Because of this, you will be contacted if you request more than 10 articles that we cannot get for free.
The lending library determines the loan and renewal policy. In most cases, you can expect to have the ILL material for 2-4 weeks. Please make every effort to return the material before the due date. If you need the material for longer, a renewal may be requested through ILLiad. Make sure to place the renewal request 3 days before the original due date. ILL must contact the lending library for permission to renew and will inform you by email whether or not your request was granted. We can usually obtain one renewal, but if not, we can place another request from a different library. However, we will still need you to return the book.
Please see overdue, lost, and damage item policy for more information
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law.