Biology Research Guide

Get Items the Library Doesn't Own with ILL

You can get access to books and articles not owned by the University Library by placing an interlibrary loan (ILL) request. This service is free of charge for students, faculty, and staff. 

Articles, which are delivered as downloadable PDFs, may arrive in as little as 2-hours but books are shipped by mail and you should expect delivery time to be in days, not hours.

How to Order Articles

The easy way:

1. Search for an article in a database and click the "View It@ISU" or "Get It@ISU" button
2. On the next screen you will see a lot of information. Look for the section labeled "If full text and other holdings not available" and click the "Request Item from Interlibrary Loan" link.
3. Sign into InterLibrary Loan with your ISU Net-ID and password.
   • If this is your first time using ILL then you will need to complete your profile first. You may need to reclick the link in step 2 after completing the profile step.
4. Review the form, which has been filled out for you, and click "Submit Request". You'll receive an email when your article is ready.

Another way

1. Sign into Interlibrary Loan using your ISU Net-ID and password. 
   • If this is your first time using ILL then you will need to complete your profile.
2. Click "Article" under the New Request menu.
3. Fill out the form with as much information as possible.
4. Review the form and click "Submit Request". You'll receive an email when your article is ready.

Tips to get your ILL article FAST!

• Include as much information as possible, especially if you think it may be hard to track down.
• Include the publishing journal's ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) in the request. You can usually locate a journal's ISSN on the journal's homepage.
• Include the article's DOI (Digital Object Identifier). DOI's all start with "10." and may be included in citations, on the publishing journal's website, and in databases.

How to Order Books

1. Search for the book you want to order in WorldCat.
2. Click the title of the book you want to order to open the record for that book.

On Campus

1. Click the "View access options" in the Access from your libraries box.
2. Click on "Get it @ ISU" link.
3. On the resulting page click on "Request Book from Interlibrary Loan" link.
4. Login to Illiad (the ILL system) with your net-ID and password to complete your request.
5. Click "Submit Request" to complete the process. You'll get an email when the book is ready for pickup.

Off-Campus

1. In a new window, log into Interlibrary Loan with your net-ID and password.
2. In the left menu click "Book" under the New Request menu.
3. Fill out as much as the form as possible (consult the Worldcat record if needed).
4. Click "Submit Request" to complete the process. You'll get an email when the book is ready for pickup.