ILL

Molly Dupere, BLC Group Win ALA STARS Award

Headshop of Molly Dupere, a smiling woman with curly blond hair and a black blouse standing in front of a shelf of books
Molly Dupere

As Northeastern University’s community continues to expand, the library strives to provide equitable access to our resources, maintaining an e-preferred collections policy. For items outside of our collections, interlibrary loan is integral—and this service includes borrowing e-books whenever possible.

In 2023, representatives from 11 member institutions within the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) formed the eBook Sharing Working Group. I was proud to co-chair the group with Marc Hoffeditz, Resource Sharing Manager of the BLC. Pamela Diaz, Northeastern’s Resource Sharing Lending Coordinator, was also a member. Our charges were:

  • Investigating a vendor-neutral, consortial approach to e-book borrowing and lending.
  • Crafting documentation to detail e-book borrowing and lending procedures, including license negotiations, holding considerations, system alterations, and adaptable workflows.
  • Exploring potential avenues for consortial e-book sharing, advocacy, and group acquisitions.
Cover of E-Book ILL Roadmaps

After a year of work, research, and collaboration with the greater BLC community, we published the E-Book ILL Roadmaps: Charting Pathways for Broader Adoption of E-Book Interlibrary Loan in June 2024. Later that year, Marc and I presented at the BLC Forum, the Northwest ILL Conference, and the Access Services Conference, and we were happy to learn that the Roadmaps won the American Library Association’s 2025 STARS Publication Recognition Award. We are excited about the potential for libraries across the world to implement them in their own ILL departments.

Interlibrary Loan: Getting Materials You Need From Across The Globe

  Have you ever found the absolutely perfect resource for your research, only to discover that it somehow falls outside of Snell Library’s collection of over half a million print- and e-books (each!) and hundred thousand e-journals? Found a title that Snell owns, but a classmate got to it first? Need a scanned chapter quickly, but not the whole book? Don’t worry, Interlibrary Loan has you covered! Currently enrolled students, faculty, and staff are able to borrow items free of charge from participating libraries across the country, including physical books, DVDs, music, and electronic copies of articles and book chapters. It’s as easy as identifying the item you need, either through the Snell’s own Scholar OneSearch, through WorldCat (the world’s largest online library catalog), or by manually entering your request through ILLiad, Interlibrary Loan’s management system. First time users will need to register an account, but the process only takes a few minutes. After submission, we’ll get to work finding the item, and patrons can track the status of their requests via their ILLiad account. Articles and book chapters generally arrive within 1-2 days, and while physical loan delivery times can vary (depending on availability and the lending institution’s location), titles typically arrive within 2-10 business days. Loan periods are generally 4-8 weeks. Check out our FAQ here, but do not hesitate to contact us at ill@northeastern.edu, or 617-373-8276. We look forward to helping you fulfill your research needs!