All students, faculty and staff are eligible to use the UWI Mona Libraries, as well as UWI retirees from the academic, senior administrative and professional categories , may access the interlibrary loan service.

All users who access the interlibrary loan service are required to pay for any costs incurred. Academic staff  however, are not required to pay for materials that are course related.

Requests to international libraries are processed via OCLC. The cost of the item to patrons is dependent on the charge stipulated by the supplying library. As a guide, average charges in 2013 were as follows:

• Articles   U$15.00 – U$25.00
• Books     U$25.00 – U$40.00

Patrons are given a realistic estimate of the time of arrival of items requested.  If it is a book or other returnable item, the process may take up to 4 – 6  weeks.

Request for interlibrary loan are to be submitted to the library staff with responsibility for interlibrary loans at the UWI Mona Libraries.  In their absence, requests should be submitted to the librarian at the Reference Desk.

Requests may be submitted by completing the form on our website or in person; by telephone, email, fax, or via OCLC’s WorldCat Resource Sharing (WCRS) service.

Requests should be for the purpose of teaching or research. Fiction and children’s literature will be requested only if there is a special research need.

Books, circulating copies of theses and dissertations, and copies of periodical articles(not issues or whole volumes) may be supplied to libraries on request.

Items will not normally be supplied if the title is in demand or there is only one copy in the collection, however, single copies of circulating may be supplied at the discretion of the Head, Loans and Reference or the Librarian, Interlibrary Loan.

Items may be supplied from the RBC at the discretion of the Head, Loans and Reference.

The Library will not normally request or supply non-circulating materials (e.g. items in the West Indies and Special Collections (WISC) and the Reference Collection).

Items may be supplied from the WI&SC at the discretion of the Head, WI&SC if there is more than one copy in the collection.

Patrons and libraries may not request more than two items at any one time.

Patron fills out a request form with the bibliographic information  and other relevant details, with feedback to be given within 24 hours of the submission of the request.

If renewal is desired, he/she should contact Interlibrary Loans at least forty-eight (48) hours before the date due; loans are renewed at the discretion of the supplying library; and overdue items are not renewed.

This would be dependent on the item requested, and the discretion of the Librarian in charge. The ILL process is a timely one involving various checks on the information provided by the requester, and the partnership with other libraries, plus the mode of transport that the item goes through.

At the initial start of the ILL transaction with the patron, same would have advised the ILL staff of the deadline by which the item is needed.  Based on the different processes that the transaction has to go through,  the staff would have in turned given a realistic estimate time of arrival of item requested, thereby giving an approximation of the waiting period.

The interlibrary loan service facilitates access to materials not available in the Mona Libraries. This is inclusive of chapters scanned from books; complying with copyright restrictions in the process.

Yes, bearing in mind copyright regulations.