Lending to Non-Ohio State Libraries

We do not charge our OhioLINK, SearchOhio, and Big Ten Academic Alliance consortial partners as well as Ohio public libraries.

We prefer IFM payment for OCLC requests. All non-IFM invoices are sent monthly from the Ohio State University Libraries Business Office and can be paid online via Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express. 

We also accept check, money order, or IFLA vouchers. Send these payments directly to the Business Office:

The Ohio State University Libraries
Business Office
Room 116 Thompson Library 
1858 Neil Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210-1286

Questions? Contact the Business Office at 614-292-2400 (voice) or 614-247-2174 (fax).

Loans and Copies

Loans of Books, Microforms, and Multimedia

Our loan period is 17 weeks for most items with additional 90 day renewals possible if requested. For multi-piece loans (e.g., several volumes of a series), we have a limit of three items per request.  More than three items can be sent if asked for: a) in multiple requests of three pieces each, or b) in a single request and the borrowing library agrees to pay shipping by providing us their UPS or Fedex account number.  See additional policies below related to special collections materials.

Copies of Journal Articles, Book Chapters, and Proceedings Papers

Copies are provided for articles, chapters, and papers up to 100 pages in length. We deliver articles electronically via Odyssey through ILLiad or as PDFs via Article Exchange.

Notice: Warning Concerning Copyright Restrictions

The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material.

Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement.

This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law.

Ohio State Dissertations and Masters' Theses  

Ohio State University Libraries is committed to making Ohio State dissertations and masters' theses available to scholars. These works may be obtained by the following methods:

OhioLINK ETD Center

Ohio State dissertations produced from 2002 to present and many masters' theses may already be freely available on the Internet at the OhioLINK Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Center. They are findable in WorldCat, our catalog, and via Google. Although all are now submitted digitally, some authors may choose to embargo, or withhold, electronic dissemination for a limited period of time.

Electronic Delivery

Ohio State masters' theses and pre-2002 dissertations not found in the OhioLINK ETD Center can be scanned and delivered as a free PDF. To request that a title be digitized, ILL offices may submit a loan request through OCLC with a Borrowing Note requesting a free PDF. Any individual may also email libill@osu.edu directly to make a digitization request. When requesting a thesis or pre-2002 dissertation via email, please include the following information:

• Author
• Title
• Call Number (see our catalog)

After scanning the material, we will email you a link to the PDF on our local server. PDFs will be stored on the server for 30 days.

Loan

Dissertations and theses are also available for a traditional interlibrary loan if a circulating paper or microfiche copy is available. Our normal lending fees apply.

Special Collections Materials

All scan or loan requests for special collections materials are filled at our curators' discretion. We consider requests from any requesting library in accordance with U.S. Copyright Law for scans from our special collections.  We consider requests for physical loans in our Hilandar Research Library collection from domestic libraries, and we consider loans from our Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, Theatre Research Institute Library, University Archives, and Rare Books and Manuscripts collections from libraries in the Big Ten Academic Alliance and OCLC SHARES+SC partnership. 

For loans, all requesting libraries should first exhaust general circulating collections at other potential domestic lenders and consult with their user before resubmitting a request for a special collections item with the required restrictions below.  Borrowing libraries should include our OSU symbol three times in the lending string for OCLC resource sharing requests and must agree:

• Item is to be used by researcher in a special collections reading room only.
• Unless explicitly prohibited for a particular item, photocopying/scanning by library staff or photography by user is permitted in accordance with U.S. Copyright Law.
• Loan period will be 45 days with no renewals.
• No adhesive tape, label, or sticky notes may be applied to item.
• Item must be returned in a box via UPS or Fedex for a specified insurance amount.
• Item must be carefully packaged and returned in its own box separate from other returns.

Additional restrictions are also possible on a case-by-case basis as determined by our curators.

Other Interlibrary Loan Offices

These Ohio State University Libraries maintain separate offices for interlibrary lending:

• Michael E. Moritz Law Library
• Health Sciences Library