Locating material elsewhere and Inter Library Loan

If a book or article is not available in the McLennan, or any other library on the Melbourne University campus, we can obtain the item on your behalf from another source via the Inter-Library Loan (ILL) service, provided the item is required for MBS related research.

A standard ILL can take up to two weeks to fulfil, but urgent requests can be given "rush" or "priority" status. Rush requests are usually fulfilled within twenty-four hours and priority requests within three days. Most ILL’s are supplied free of charge, but charges will apply for items requested from libraries within the metropolitan area or for those requested as rush or priority requests.

You may wish to find out where a required book or journal is located and, if it is within the metropolitan area, personally borrow the item via the CAVAL (Co-operative Action by Victorian Academic Libraries) reciprocal borrowing program. An authorisation card to use the CAVAL program is available on request from the loans desk. Detailed information regarding participating libraries and conditions of entry are available online from CAVAL.

Bear in mind also that some 9000 journal and newspaper titles, most of them in full-text, are available via the combined Arcadia electronic sources, but as they are not catalogued in the general library (Innopac) catalogue, it will not be immediately apparent that they are held locally.

If you prefer to obtain the items yourself (which could be much cheaper and faster), use the sources listed below to establish a location or consult library staff for location advice.

To establish a location

• Cool-Cat , an on-line catalogue operated by CAVAL lists the holdings of the State Library and other academic libraries in Victoria. It is accessible via the general library catalogue, under the function connect to another library.

• Beyond Victoria, you can search for any item and its location in Australia via Kinetica (the national bibliographic database), also accessible via the general library catalogue. Access to Kinetica is password restricted and you will need to provide your name and library barcode to obtain the required password.

• Additionally, the Australian Libraries Gateway provides web access to the on-line catalogues of other Australian libraries, including public libraries.

To request an Inter-Library Loan

Due to copyright requirements, requests must be submitted in print form on the McLennan Library Inter-Library Loans Form available from the loans desk. You will need to complete the form with the full article or book details and sign the copyright declaration. You will be notified once the requested item has arrived.