Request Materials/Delivery
Service Overview
OU Libraries offers Interlibrary Loan (ILL) and Sooner Xpress delivery services to provide convenient access to materials from both our collections and libraries around the world, ensuring timely support for a wide range of research needs.
What We Offer
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a service that provides access to research materials not owned by OU libraries. These materials are borrowed from other libraries throughout the world.
Sooner Xpress is a free document delivery service that provides digitized copies of journal articles and book chapters, as well as retrieval of books from the OU Libraries' collection.
Requested items for both services can be picked up at Bizzell Memorial Library or delivered to a branch library, your home, or office.
- Request materials
- Book retrieval
- Digitized copies
- Pickup at Bizzell or branch libraries
- Delivery to your home or office
Get Started
Who Can Use These Services
Interlibrary Loan and Sooner Xpress are available to current OU students, faculty, staff, and Professors Emeritus at the Norman campus. Students enrolled at OU-Tulsa or OU-Health Sciences Center should use the Interlibrary Loan services and forms available on OU-Tulsa or OU-Health Sciences Center library websites to request materials.
How to Request Materials
For theses and dissertations, follow the steps listed in our FAQs section. For all other requests, use the following steps:
- Search for your item using Discover Local.
- If the item is owned by the OU Libraries, submit a SoonerXpress request in the item record by following the “Get It” link.
- If the item is not owned by the OU Libraries, use the request forms below:
- Check on your items on your My ILL page.
Get Your Requested Materials
For both services, you can request items be picked up at Bizzell Memorial Library or delivered to a branch library, your home, or office. Items requested for campus office delivery are now couriered through Norman's Campus Mail Service.
Delivery and Turnaround Time
Interlibrary Loan
Items electronically supplied to you via My ILL are normally filled between 24-48 hours. A request for a physical loan of an item may take up to three weeks to arrive.
If you have an urgent need, contact the ILL office about rush service. Rush service for copies or scans cost $10 per item. For books, we require that users cover the cost of expedited shipping, which averages $30. If the items do not arrive by the date needed, the charges will be waived.
Sooner Xpress
Requests for articles and books to be held at an OU library for pickup are typically satisfied within 1 to 2 working days. Off-campus U.S. mail delivery may take up to 2 weeks. Consider on-campus delivery or pick-up at Bizzell Library instead.
For electronic delivery, once you have received notification that your article has arrived, log in to My ILL using your OUNETID (4x4). The article will be located under "Electronically Received Articles." Select the PDF link to access your article.
How to Request a Renewal
To learn about renewing your materials, visit the Borrow Books, Media, & Equipment web page.
How to Return Materials
For information about returning your materials, visit the Return Items web page.
Contact Information
FAQs
In accordance with the Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act, an amendment to Title 17 of the United States Code, the University of Oklahoma Libraries may borrow and lend materials through ILL and request scans of materials for the purpose of private study, scholarship, or research. The Interlibrary Loan department reserves the right to refuse to process requests which, in our opinion, would violate copyright law. On these occasions, Interlibrary Loan will provide users with information on how they might acquire the desired materials through channels other than Interlibrary Loan.
Interlibrary loan materials may not be put on reserve. Faculty and staff may use our Materials on Reserve service to request that materials be placed on reserve.
These services are generally free. Rush requests may incur a cost. Contact the ILL team for more info
Interlibrary Loan
The following materials are not available through Interlibrary Loan:
- Print versions of e-books owned by OU
- Print materials owned by OU - requests for these items will be sent to Sooner Xpress
- Popular movies, popular music, video games, and audio books - these items are more readily available from your local public library
- Textbooks or required texts for current courses
- Electronic copies of entire books or full issues of periodicals. Due to copyright licensing issues and varying software setups, we try to obtain a physical copy of a requested resource for loan purposes as a default.
Sooner Xpress
The following materials are not available through Sooner Xpress:
- Materials on Reserve
- Items in non-circulating collections
- E-books
Please note: Scans from print materials in non-circulating collections or on reserve may be requested through Sooner Xpress.
If an item from a circulating collection is missing or checked out to another user, your request will be converted to an Interlibrary Loan request.
To request a thesis/dissertation, please use the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (Dissertation Abstracts) database. Many dissertations are available online without charge from this database.
If online access to the dissertation is unavailable in Dissertation Abstracts, use the WorldCat Dissertations database to request the dissertation. Once you have located a record for the dissertation within WorldCat, click on the “Request via Interlibrary Loan” link to order it.
If there is no record of the dissertation in WorldCat, use the ILL Book Request Form located on your My ILL page to request the dissertation. Please be sure to include the author, title, date of publication, and the school where it was written.