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Shimberg Health Sciences Library & Florida Blue Health Knowledge Exchange

Request Books and Articles

ILLiad - Request an Article, Book, or Book Chapter

We will obtain articles and book chapters that are unavailable electronically for USF Health students, faculty, and staff. If we own it in print, we will scan it for you. If we don't own it, we'll request it from another library. 

We will obtain books that are unavailable at your home library from another library (including other USF libraries). For Book/Loan requests, be sure to choose your pickup location (Shimberg Library on the Tampa Campus, or Florida Blue Health Knowledge Exchange downtown).

Important: Please note that the information in your ILLiad account -- your Status, Department, email address and other contact information -- must be manually maintained. Please periodically check your information under Change User Information to insure that it stays current.

More About Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery

  • You will receive an email notification when your materials arrive.
  • Articles will be available to download from ILLiad for 30 days. Please check these materials for any problems and download a copy for your personal use as soon as they are delivered.
  • Books and other physical materials must be picked up within 7 days.
  • You can track the status of your request by logging into ILLiad. Here are some of the most common statuses:
    • Awaiting Copyright Clearance or Awaiting Request Processing: Your request has been received and is waiting for library staff to process it.
    • Awaiting Document Delivery Processing: We have the article or book chapter in our print collection, and it will soon be scanned and sent to you.
    • Awaiting ILL Processing: Your request has been reviewed and is waiting to be sent out to potential lending libraries.
    • Request Sent: Your request has been sent out to potential lending libraries. It will remain at this status until we receive the material.
    • Awaiting Patron Reply: We are waiting for your input in order to finish your request. You should have received an email requesting additional information.
    • Awaiting Further Processing: There is an issue with your request -- either it is awaiting special handling, or we have contacted you for additional information.
    • Customer Notified via E-Mail: Your item has arrived and is being held for you to pick up. You should have received an email notifying you of the delivery.
    • Checked Out to Customer: You have picked up your item and it is in your possession.

Distance Learners & Visiting Scholars

Distance Learners can have USF library materials, UBorrow items, or interlibrary loan materials delivered to their home address. For these purposes, the USF Health Libraries defines a USF Distance Learner as a student currently enrolled in distance coursework who attends on-campus less than once a week.

Visiting Scholars (i.e., persons engaged as researchers or scholars in the USF J-1 program) should have their faculty sponsor contact us via email at illiad@usf.edu to request interlibrary loan privileges for the Visiting Scholar.

Limitations on ILL Borrowing

Some materials are not eligible for borrowing via interlibrary loan:

  • Any book with an available USF library copy (including copies on Reserve and in e-book format)
  • Textbooks (anything sold by USF Bookstore as course textbook)
  • E-Books
  • Entire issues of journals
  • Very old or rare material

Recently published materials can be difficult to obtain as we wait for other libraries to acquire and catalog them.

Some libraries do not loan media (DVDs, VHS, CDs, etc.), but we will attempt to obtain media items.

We do sometimes exhaust all possible options and have to cancel requests because we cannot obtain the material.

If your request is cancelled, you should receive an email explaining the reason for the cancellation. Feel free to contact us with questions.