Resource Sharing in libraries involves sharing of physical or electronic materials between libraries.
Resource Sharing Services at Foley Library include both Interlibrary Loan & Summit.
What is Summit?
As members of the Orbis Cascade Alliance, Gonzaga University students, faculty, and staff can request physical items from any of our partner institutions. Expected delivery is 3-5 business days.
What is ILL?
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a service that allows us to borrow virtually anything from any other library around the world (physical and electronic). We aim to source anything that is not either prohibitively expensive or too rare to borrow. Expected delivery of ILL requested items is 1-2 weeks.
Read more about each service below.
ILL service is available to all current students, faculty, and staff of Gonzaga University.
Students, faculty, and staff of the School of Law should contact Chastek Law Library for ILL.
We suggest allowing up to 2 weeks for ILL books to arrive and an average of 3-5 business days for electronic delivery of articles and book chapters.
We will make an earnest attempt to request almost any library item you need for your academic research. Keep in mind that some materials can be difficult or impossible to obtain. We cannot borrow eBooks, streaming media, and other materials that are not loanable due to format or licensing restrictions.
If a book owned by Foley Library has a status of checked out, on order, damaged, missing, or lost, you are welcome to request it through ILL.
Due to unknown shipping times and as a courtesy to other libraries we cannot ask for requests to be rushed.
Articles and Book Chapters are delivered in PDF format to your ILL account and are automatically removed after five views or 30 days, whichever comes first. It is recommended to save PDFs to a computer or flash drive, which will allow them to be kept indefinitely.
Books have due dates established by the lending libraries, which we must honor. In most cases, renewals are allowed and can be requested from your ILL account or by calling the ILL office. You will be notified by email if a renewal was granted or denied by the lending library.
eBooks are not available via ILL. All eBook request will be canceled or converted to physical book loans.
You may have up to 50 active ILL requests at one time. Article and book chapter requests are considered active until the document is delivered to you or until canceled by the library if not available. Book requests remain active until received back at the lending library, which could be several days or longer after it was returned to Foley Library.
If your library circulation account is blocked for any reason (e.g., lost items, excessive fines, expired registration), Interlibrary Loan privileges will be correspondingly suspended. After resolving your account with Circulation, please contact the ILL Department to have privileges reinstated.
A standard lost item fee of $100 is assessed to your library account when an ILL item reaches 14 days overdue. This fee is automatically waived upon return of the item. Actual charges for lost or damaged books are determined by the lending libraries and could include a processing fee. Total costs to replace lost or damaged books could exceed $100 per item.
As of September 2023, Tipasa (our ILL system) is now integrated with Alma.
You will still need to refer patrons to use their ILL account to make requests, including renewal requests (we CANNOT renew items for patrons using Alma).
However, now that the two systems are integrated, you will just need to check the item out to the patron using the ILL item barcode (found at the top of the ILL book strap). The due date will be automatically imported, so no need to worry about changing anything in Alma! Just let the patron know their due date, and advise them to request a renewal through their ILL account if needed. Desensitize the item as usual.
Once in a while, a patron might request something through Interlibrary Loan which cannot be taken outside of the building. Those items are often rare, delicate, or microfilm/microfiche items, and live in the "Library Use Only" bin below the pick up shelves.
If a patron comes to pick up an Interlibrary Loan and it is in the Lib Use Only bin, do not worry about checking the item in or out. The item is already checked out to the patron's account.
Explain to the patron that they may not leave the building with the item, and to return it to the front desk when they are done.
If a patron returns a Lib Use Only ILL item, DO NOT RETURN IT IN ALMA. Instead, place it back into the Lib Use Only bin.
Physical items (books, DVDs, CDs etc.) that are unavailable or are not owned by the Gonzaga Libraries in Spokane can be requested through Summit or Interlibrary Loan borrowing by current Gonzaga students, staff, faculty, and emeritus.
Summit requests are routed through the Orbis Cascade Alliance member libraries, Gonzaga joined this alliance of Pacific Northwest libraries in August of 2022.
Interlibrary Loan items are sourced from libraries around the United States, and sometimes abroad.
Both Summit Resource Sharing and Interlibrary Loan borrowing are available to current Gonzaga students, faculty, staff, and emeritus.
Summit requests are placed via Primo Library Search.
| Checkout | Renew | |
|---|---|---|
| Summit | 12 weeks for all items | 1 renewal: up to an additional 6 weeks from original due date |
| Interlibrary Loan | Due dates are determined by the lending library and vary | Typically 1 renewal, duration determined by lending library |