Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

When an item you need is not owned by Fondren Library, or is unavailable, you may request to borrow the item from another library. You may request electronic copies, such as PDFs of academic articles, along with physical items such as books, recordings, or microfilm.

Current Rice faculty, staff & students, retired staff, and faculty emeritus with active Rice NetIDs are eligible for interlibrary loan services.

Visiting Scholars, Complimentary Staff, Friends of Fondren, Inter-Institutional Grad Students, and members of the general public are not eligible for interlibrary loan services.

Fondren Library Interlibrary Loan is committed to providing digital content that is accessible to all users, and ensuring equitable access to the materials and services we provide. Please find further information regarding accessibility and ensuring materials meet your accessibility needs below.

Policies

• Due dates are set by the lending library
• Renewals are not allowed at this time
• ILL Items can not be placed in Course Reserves
• Copyright laws apply to all materials
• Your account will be blocked if you have any overdue ILL items
• If a lending library bills us for a book they consider lost, we will forward it to the user on the account

Accessibility

We can work with lending libraries to obtain materials in accessible formats:

• Large-print editions or high-contrast print versions
• OCR-enabled PDFs for screen reader compatibility
  • PDFs should be OCR-enabled, but may not be fully remediated (see note below)
  • Please note that OCR capabilities may be limited for materials that are non-English language or in non-Latin scripts, or due to low scan quality
  • DocDel scans of Rice materials should automatically be OCR-enabled as part of the scanning software suite
• In order to provide access to these materials in the most time-efficient manner, some resource requests are obtained using unmediated processes 
  • As such, some electronic materials may unknowingly come from resource providers who do not meet our accessibility standards 
  • If the materials delivered do not meet your needs, please contact us and we will work with you to provide the document in a format that does meet your needs

How to request accessible content?

• In the Accessibility section of the request form, select "Yes, I have an Accessibility need" from the dropdown
• In the text box below, please indicate what is needed to ensure accessibility (ie, "Large print needed" or "OCR-enabled PDF for screen reader")
  • Please do not provide details about your disability or any other medical information

Items Unavailable for ILL

Each library makes its own decisions about what materials it circulates and shares via ILL; the following items are often unavailable via ILL:

• Rare items (microforms or scans may be available)
• Books in poor condition (as decided by lending library)
• Reference materials (encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.)
• Software

Dissertations & Theses

• Check Proquest first before making a request for dissertations or theses; many are available online