The most commonly requested materials in the Library are books and journal articles. The first part of this page deals with locating books when you know the author or title, and the second part deals with locating a journal when you know the title and volume number of the journal you need.

Step One: Online Library Catalog

Search for books in the quick search when you know either the title or the name of the author. For more on searching the Online Catalog, watch our tutorial (click on the image to watch the video):

Step Two: I-Share

If your book is either not located in the catalog or all copies are checked out, then search the I-Share catalog to see if one of the participating institutions has a copy for you to borrow. For more on searching the I-Share Catalog, and on Interlibrary Loan (step three below), watch our tutorial (click on the image to watch the video):

Step Three: Interlibrary Loan

If the item is not available in the Illinois catalog and it is not available through I-Share, then your next stop will be Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery. Login to Interlibrary Loan using your NetID and password. From the ILLiad main menu, select "Request a Book." Be sure to fill out as much of the form as possible. You'll be notifed by email when your item is ready to be picked up. For more on Interlibrary Loan, watch our tutorial in Step Two above (click on the image to watch the video). 

Preliminaries

When looking for a known-journal article, you will usually be working from a citation that might look something like the following:

 King, Charles R., "Childhood Death: The Health Care of Children on the Kansas Frontier," Kansas History 14 (1991), no. 1: 26-36.

You should use the journal title (e.g., Kansas History), not the article title, to locate this article.

Step One: Journal Locator

Use the Library's Journal Locator to find a journal by its title. For more information on using the Journal Locator, watch our tutorial (click on the image to watch the video):

Step Two: Interlibrary Loan
If you were unable to find your journal article through the Journal Locator, then request the article through Interlibrary Loan. Make sure to choose "Request a photocopy". Interlibrary Loan will most likely deliver your article as a .pdf file to your email address.