If you are unable to pick up BU STH Library-owned materials on campus, the library may be able to mail you circulating materials! We call this process "Document Delivery." Document delivery requests (for both shipped books and electronic delivery of articles) are placed through our interlibrary loan interface, ILLiad.
You will be responsible for returning any BU materials back to campus prior to their due dates (graduate loan periods are 133 days). If a material is recalled, please contact the library once you have mailed the material so that circulation staff know what day to expect its arrival. (When a material is recalled, a notice is sent changing the loan period to one week from that date. Since the book must be received within a week, please return the book promptly and pay attention to shipping speeds.)
The following video shows Distance students the specific steps needed to register for ILL. It is important that you note you are a distance student in the registration, so we can provide you document delivery services!
Placing a Document Delivery request through ILLiad is the same as an interlibrary loan request, save for the fact that we own the resource! The following video shows all students how to place a request from another library; in particular, focus on section 2 and 3 of the tutorial to learn how to place requests.
CAUTION: InterLibrary Loan (ILL) book requests (or requests for other physical media) should only be placed if you are able to visit campus to pick them up and again to return them. Because of the short loan periods granted to us by their lending institutions, it is not feasible at this time to mail these materials to you, as the secondary shipping to your home will use virtually all of your loan period.
For more information, please visit our page on InterLibrary Loan.
