Interlibrary Loan is a service that allows you to request materials that you cannot find in other USM library collections. This could be an article to a journal we do not subscribe to or a book you cannot find at a Maine library. In short, we try to bridge the gap between what USM owns and what you might need.
This service is free for USM students (full time or part time), staff, faculty and alumni. Members of the public can buy a courtesy card for $60 a year.
First, you have to create an account, which you can do here: https://usm-maine.illiad.oclc.org/illiad/.
Once you have an account you can either fill out the appropriate request forms (book, article etc.) or you can request directly from USM databases by clicking the request button.
When we receive the material, we will send you an email letting you know you can either pick it up or download it from your account.
For articles, the average time before we have the pdf to you is seven and a half hours. If you need something actually mailed to us, like a book or a thesis, this typically takes over a week to arrive.
Scan and deliver simply means that we will send articles and book chapters that USM owns if you are not able to come to the library in person. We do not want a long commute or scheduling issues to be a barrier to you getting the research materials you need.
When in doubt, just place a request. We will get it for you by the fastest means we can. If you want to learn more about the best research methods, please make an appointment with our reference staff. You can reach them at: https://libanswers.usm.maine.edu/
From time to time we purge older records from ILLiad. Our policy is to keep requests online for several years order to comply with record keeping requirements of the copyright law.
Please give us as much information as you do have. The better the citation the quicker we can process it. If something that you are missing is required, you can always put in a question mark and feel free to add a note with anything else we should know.
No. We do have to abide by copyright law and have legal restrictions on what we can provide for you.
As many as you like, as long as it does not violate copyright rules (see above).
Please contact the InterLibrary Loan office at 207-228-8449 or 207-780-5343 or e-mail to illpor@maine.edu
One of your menu options is “Outstanding Requests.” There you will be able to see the statuses of requests you have submitted through ILLiad but have not yet received. You can also view the stages your request has gone through under “Checked Out Items.”
Explanations of some statuses are as follows:
The only significant technical requirement is software about to view pdfs. We recommend Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available without charge here: https://get.adobe.com/reader/