Copyright in ILL

The Library may be either a borrower (when we borrow materials from other libraries on behalf of our students, faculty, and other patrons) or lender (when we provide materials to other libraries) in the ILL context. There are specific rules that the ILL department must follow to ensure compliance with federal laws. Therefore, ILL staff should familiarize themselves with Copyright Guidelines and Best Practices provided by Copyright Clearance Center. As a lending library, we can lend anything that is authorized to be lent externally. As a borrowing library, we are responsible for compliance with copyright law (Section 108) and CONTU Guidelines. For this reason, the ILL department will cancel any requests that would result in a copyright violation.

General guidelines:

  • ILL article requests are limited to one article, per issue, per patron without requesting copyright permission.
  • The ILL department can request no more than five articles (for all patrons) from a single periodical title (as opposed to a single issue) per calendar year. Starting with the sixth copy, copyright permission and royalty fees may be required.
  • Regarding requests for sections or chapters of non-periodical works (such as books), each patron may submit a request for a copy of up to two chapters or 10% of the work.
  • The ILL department can request no more than five copies of articles, chapters or other small portions of a non-periodical work in a given calendar year, during the entire period of copyright of the book. Starting with the sixth copy, copyright permission and royalty fees may be required.

More Resources:

The CONTU Final Report

Section 108

Copyright Basics for ILL