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Interlibrary Loan

Looking for a book, article or other materials that we don’t have? Place a request through interlibrary loan and we can find it for you!

Often abbreviated ILL, Interlibrary Loan is a service through which you can request library materials that the Colby College libraries do not have direct access to. The ILLiad Interlibrary Loan service at Colby offers loans of both physical items (like books or DVDs) and electronically delivered items (like book chapters and articles) and connects us to libraries all over the world! ILLiad Interlibrary Loan is a unique service that uses the program called ILLiad to process items. It is separate from the regular Library program, which is why you have a unique ILLiad account in addition to your Library account.

In addition to the ILLiad Interlibrary Loan service, Colby also participates in CBB (Colby Bates Bowdoin) and MaineCat local resource sharing. CBB requesting is available through the Library Catalog under the Get It heading (you will need to sign in to see the request option.) MaineCat is available via the MaineCat button on our Library Catalog page.

  1. To create an ILLiad account, click on the My ILLiad Account link at the top of the Colby Libraries homepage
  2. Authenticate with Okta using your Colby credentials.
  3. Complete all mandatory fields in the ‘New User Registration for ILLiad’ form. Mandatory fields are marked with a red asterisk.
  4. Click ‘Submit Information’.

To place a request through ILLiad Interlibrary Loan, log in to your My ILLiad Account and select the form that matches the type of material you’d like to borrow from the “Make A New Request” dropdown. Requests for digital materials like book chapter and articles are often available within 2 business days, but may take longer depending on the availability of the material. Requests for physical items like books or multimedia materials can vary, usually arriving between a week and a month. 

For questions regarding ILLiad Interlibrary Loan, please contact us at [email protected]