Library Card Renewals

Posted on Friday, December 7, 2012 by eLibrarian

Residents are currently being asked to provide written verification of their current address in order to renew their cards.  For questions about renewing your card, please contact us.

Interlibrary Loan Request (ILL)

About Interlibrary Loan

An Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a request to libraries in North America for material not owned by the Santa Clara County Library District. This service is available to customers with currently active library cards. There is a $4.00 non-refundable processing fee for each ILL item. In addition, some lending libraries may charge additional fees. There is a $1.00 per day overdue fine for ILL materials.

Types of Materials

A wide range of materials are available through ILL. Some materials are more difficult to obtain because other libraries may not loan, including

  • reference items
  • original or rare materials
  • newspapers in original format (although these may be available on microfilm)
  • DVDs
  • videocassettes

Newer items (i.e., published within the last twelve months) are not available through ILL. However, you may recommend newer titles for purchase for the library's collection by submitting a Suggest a Purchase form online, or at your local library's reference desk.

How do I check on the status of my ILL?

Please allow 1-2 days for your request to be in process online. Once in process, ILL items usually are received in 2-3 weeks depending on the lending institution and shipping time.

You can check on the status of your ILL item in our web catalog. In the "Title" search field enter "ILL item" followed by the title of the item you are requesting.

The library has two methods for accepting Interlibrary Loan requests:

  1. Submit an Interlibrary Loan Request at any reference desk during open hours at any of our libraries.
  2. Fill out a form online within the WorldCat catalog. To get to this form, first search WorldCat and find the item you would like to request. WorldCat searches books and other library materials worldwide.

Locate the correct version of the item you want to request (i.e. title, author, format, etc.) In the item detail record under "Availability" select the link "Submit an ILL request for this item (Interlibrary Loan)" to access the online form.

screenshot for submit an ILL request

Fill out the online form. Required fields include:

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Telephone
  • Patron barcode #
  • Pick-up Location (Choose your pickup location from the dropdown menu.)
  • Maximum Cost (Indicate the maximum cost you would be willing to pay - in addition to the $4.00 base cost - if we cannot obtain the item for free.)
  • Comments (Please submit any comments that might be helpful to us in processing your request.)

If you are requesting a journal article use the "Comments" field to tell us as much as you can about the title, date, volume, issue number and page numbers of the article.

Once you fill in the required fields and click on "Submit" the form will be sent directly to the Santa Clara County Library District ILL department.

 

online form for Interlibrary Loan (ILL) requests

 

Help

If you have additional questions or need help, please contact Santa Clara County Library District's Interlibrary Loan Department at (408) 293-2326 x3013.

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