New Patron Interlibrary Loan Form

Submitted by Meredith Causey

Why can't patrons place ILL requests directly through the WorldCat catalog portal? 

We had to update our catalog to meet federal accessibility standards and the new website vendor does not offer a direct portal to search WorldCat. Our workaround is a new Interlibrary Loan request form, very similar to our patron Suggest an Item for Purchase form.

Starting September 14, 2026, patrons will submit their own Interlibrary Loan requests through an online form on the ILL Service page on our website. If a patron contacts you to place an ILL request, please instruct them on how to access the online form. While you may enter the request for them at your discretion, we prefer that patrons enter the information themselves.

The Materials Department will review and process the forms every morning, Monday–Friday.

Please remember these tips for helping patrons:

• The submission form will not link to their online library account.
• The submission form links to WorldCat and the PINES catalog to help patrons find title and author information. Both of these fields are required. 
• Once Materials staff reviews the submission form, we will import the request into Polaris onto the patron account, where the request item status will appear as “inactive.”
• Once we import the Polaris requests into the WorldShare software to find a lender, the item status in Polaris will show “active.” An item remains “active” until it arrives and we check it in to send it to the branch.
• Items may remain "active" for weeks while we try to find a lender and it travels to us.
• Patrons can have three “active” ILL requests at one time.
• Patrons can check out up to three ILL requests at one time. (A patron could have three active requests and three items checked out. If the active items arrive, they cannot checkout until they return another.)
• In an effort to reduce shipping costs, we rely more heavily on our PINES public libraries. This increases the wait time for our patrons, as many PINES library systems lack dedicated ILL staff and books must travel across the state of Georgia. Please remind our patrons to be patient. 
• We find up to 10 lenders per title—focusing on free shipping (PINES) lenders first—we start with neighboring counties and move outward. The system gives a set number of days for the first lender to respond before it rolls over to the next lender, etc. Each lender chooses how many days they have to respond. It is usually 2 or 4 days, sometimes 8, 12, 16, or 20 days to respond. This causes delays.  
• University of Georgia system libraries are no longer free shipping lenders. We receive these items from USPS now—this creates delays.
• At check out, ask if the patron needs a renewal, since the loan periods for PINES libraries are typically quite short. We want to ensure they have enough time with the items.
   

We are sending the branches a bookmark to insert into ILL holds alerting patrons of the new form and how to access it. The bookmark lives on Drive so you can reprint as needed. Please only use the bookmark in ILL holds. You will receive the bookmarks on Friday, September 11. Please do not use the bookmarks until Monday, September 14.