Why can't some items be borrowed?
Though we will attempt to borrow almost any material requested, lending libraries determine what materials they will provide. ILL does not lease or rent materials, and rarely does it buy materials; instead, it borrows it from others. It might help to think of Interlibrary Loan on a more personal level. If you own a book, car, or iPod and someone asks you to borrow it, you may be happy to let them borrow it for a few days or weeks, but you probably want to reserve the right to decide to whom you loan it, for how long they get to keep it, and how you want it treated when they have it. You may also be glad to loan it to them when you have finished with it, but not immediately when they ask for it. Some items you may simply refuse to lend to others, or lend only to your closest friends or family members because the items are valuable or meaningful or one-of-a-kind. Other times, you may have to explain that you would love to lend it, but someone else already has borrowed it or that you cannot find it. Likewise, just as you do with your personal belongings, libraries often do with their materials.
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| | | Materials owned by Joyner Library Patrons living on campus or in Pitt County may not request materials owned by Joyner Library listed in the catalog or available through Joyner's extensive database collections. | |
| | | Required Course Textbooks Please read a complete explanation as to why textbooks cannot be borrowed through Interlibrary Loan at this web page. | |
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| | | Items Checked-out from Joyner Library The National Interlibrary Loan Code and North Carolina Interlibrary Loan Code are interpreted to usually prohibit requesting materials that are simply checked-out from the requesting library. As a member of the KUDZU consortium of select Southeastern university libraries, Joyner can request materials that are checked-out from Joyner Library if they are owned by KUDZU libraries. However, not all checked-out items are owned by KUDZU libraries, so your request may be canceled.
Usually, though, it is best to contact Joyner's Circulation desk to place a recall on the item if needed quickly, or have a hold placed on the item if you can wait until it is returned by the patron who currently has it. | |
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| | | The following items are sometimes able to be borrowed. You may request them, but please note that these items usually take longer to locate or to find a library that will loan them. Be assured, we will certainly attempt to obtain them for you.
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| | | Material published or released within the current or past year Libraries typically take several months to over a year to acquire newly released titles. Many libraries will not loan their newly acquired books or they simply may be checked out by others already.
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| | | Entire volumes or issues of periodicals Full bound versions of journals and magazines are usually impossible or highly costly to replace if they are lost or damaged, so most libraries will not loan them.
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| | | Reference works By their nature as being classified as reference works, most libraries have them in their reference departments and do not loan them to their own patrons, so will not loan them to other library's patrons. Most of the time, though, we can obtain photocopies of sections from reference books.
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| | | Rare books -- usually published before 1900 These books are typically fragile and impossible to replace, so shipping them could easily damage or destroy them. They can also be valuable and historically significant. Others may simply be restricted from being loaned because they were donated to or purchased for a non-circulating collection.
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| | | Original archival manuscripts Often these papers are only owned by one library in the world and no other copies exist elsewhere. They are too valuable, historically significant, or irreplaceable to risk having them mailed or even express shipped. Often when these materials are donated to or purchased for the library, they are promised or contractually bound not to lend them offsite.
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| | | Genealogical research materials Like reference books, rare books, and archival papers, genealogical works, whether individual papers or bound books, are often not loaned by libraries. These items are typically owned by few libraries and are irreplaceable if lost or damaged.
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| | | Newspapers in their original format -- usually are sent in photocopy or microfilm Very few libraries retain hard-copy newspapers because of the space they require and because newspaper and newsprint are not designed for longevity. Instead, most newspapers are microfilmed. Requests for newspaper articles are typically filled by borrowing the microfilm reels or getting a photocopy/PDF scan of the article.
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| | | Videotapes, DVDs, CDs, and other recordings These media formats are loaned by very few libraries. Records break. Cassette tapes and VHS tapes can get erased if run through certain security scanning equipment. DVDs and CDs scratch and break so easily. Additionally, these media items tend be popular at the owning libraries or be expensive.
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| | | Computer software Few libraries own and circulate computer software because of the cost, how quickly they are outdated, and due to legal licensing liabilities.
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| | | Dissertations & Theses These may be owned by dozens of libraries, or only by the university library where the degree was granted. Most theses/dissertations are not actually published and widely sold, but some copies have been bought and added to library collections. Rarely, though, not even the degree granting university will own a copy. Thesis/dissertations by non-US universities are often not able to be located or purchased, but we attempt to obtain them.
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| | | Grey (gray) literature (unpublished working papers, certain conference reports, etc.) Because these, by their very nature, are unpublished, unverified, unofficial, etc. documents, they can be difficult to find.
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