Interlibrary Loan Help

All interlibrary loan (ILL) requests are placed online.

You cannot borrow a periodical article, volume or issue of a journal through the OhioLINK system.  Instead, request photocopies of articles through Interlibrary Loan, and the copy (which is free) is yours to keep.

Science library staff can help you find the full title of periodicals, if all you know are abbreviations. Many abbreviated titles are indexed in the OhioLINK Library Catalog; do a title search for the abbreviation. The OhioLINK catalog record will include the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) or book number (ISBN).

We can also help you verify the citation when your information is incomplete (missing the date or page numbers, for example, makes it very difficult to fill your ILL request).

We request articles from libraries all over the world.

We are not limited to items in OhioLINK libraries, so do not be dismayed if the book or journal you want does not seem to be in Ohio. Interlibrary Loan staff can track down materials in libraries worldwide.  Try Google or Google Scholar, also, just in case a free copy of the article has been made available online (more likely for articles that are at least 6 months old).

Finding complete information for older references:

• ISI Web of Knowledge - try a "Cited Ref" search to find papers that reference (or cite) the older paper.  The citing paper may give a more complete reference than you already have.  Do a search by author or title keywords to find papers published since 1980.

More help deciphering periodical title abbreviations:

• CASSI - Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index; shelved in the science library office.

• BIOSIS List of Serials - on the table with research workstations in the reference area. Also try browsing by journal title in Biological Abstracts online.

• MEDLINE source titles are available online at PubMed or by browsing by journal title in the OhioLINK version of MEDLINE.

• GeoREF covers all earth sciences; browse by journal title online.

• INSPEC indexes journals in physics, engineering and computer science; browse by journal title.