How long will my Interlibrary Loan request take?

We get the majority of ILL articles (scanned and emailed via ILL) within five days. However, we cannot guarantee that items will be received by a specified time by requester.  Books take longer since they are at the mercy of the postal service.  

While we aim to get your ILLs processed as soon as possible, we cannot guarantee a timeline, so it's best to plan ahead, especially if it's near a holiday or school closure, since staff members have to review requests to begin the ILL process. Additionally, lending institutions can place themselves as “unavailable” during the holidays or long breaks, so sometimes we have to wait on the people supplying our request.  If they are set to "unavailable," the requests will go to the next available institution.  Even though the request system is automated, the requests can only be processed and fulfilled by staff at the participating institutions, so the process slows down considerably during holiday breaks. 

If you have questions about the process or a specific request, please contact the library at 662-329-7332 or email ill-lib@muw.edu.