Interlibrary loan policy

Interlibrary loan policy
Service description

The interlibrary loan (ILL) service obtains learning and research materials that are not available in the Information Resource Center (IRC). Books are borrowed from other libraries, while journal articles are usually sent as black and white print copies. The conditions of this service are set by the individual lending libraries and international copyright guidelines by which the IRC must abide to in order to participate. Any questions pertaining to the ILL service should be sent to irc-ill@constructor.university.

Materials that can be requested through interlibrary loan:

  • Anything not owned by the IRC
  • Items owned by the IRC, but currently lost or missing

Items that may be difficult to obtain (no guarantee of delivery):

  • Rare items and older books (published before 1950)
  • Very recent publications. Those items can be recommended for the IRC collection
  • Reference material (encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.)
  • Items which are in poor condition
  • Software and multimedia materials of all sorts, including DVDs, CD-ROMs etc.
  • Psychological tests
  • Dissertations and theses (PhD, master’s and bachelor’s)
  • The ILL department guarantees

The ILL department will not order:

  • Physical material (books, microfilm, microfiche, etc.) from non-European countries
  • Entire journal issues
  • More than twenty items per patron per day
  • E-books since these are, for copyright reasons, not available for interlibrary loan
  • Books that are part of the reserves collection, located in faculty offices, or that are already checked out by another patron
Patron groups

The ILL service is only available to Constructor University Bremen students, faculty, and staff. To order ILL items for a professor, student assistants should use the account data of the respective professor’s office. For picking up items, the professor’s office card has to be used.

Fees & fines

There is usually no charge for materials received through ILL. However:

  • If an ILL item is not picked up by the patron, the patron’s account will be fined 3 € per item.
  • Overdue ILL materials incur a fine of 0.50 € per item per day.
  • For the loss of the (yellow) bar code slip that comes with every ILL item, the library assesses a fine of 2 €.
  • Since the IRC may lose borrowing privileges at other libraries due to late or not returned ILL books, the IRC will bar patrons from the ILL service if materials are not returned after the third overdue notice.
  • If the ILL department receives self-ordered items that were available at Constructor University, they will be immediately returned to the lending library and the patron’s account will be fined 3 € per item.
Loan periods & renewals

The loan period is determined by the lending library and is usually two to four weeks. The due date of the item is marked on the receipt. Renewal requests should be sent to irc-ill@constructor.university three to five working days before the item is due.

Delivery times

The library processes incoming ILL requests within 24 hours on weekdays (guaranteed for twenty orders or less). Delivery times depend on several factors, many of which are not under the control of the ILL department. Usually it takes about ten working days for books and articles to arrive. Once the item has arrived, a notification will be sent via e-mail.