Q. What happens when I place an ILLiad request for an article?

When you place a request for an article there are a number of things that may happen before that article is delivered to you.

Requests for most articles published more than 5 years ago are routed through RapidILL, an automatic resource sharing system. These requests are NOT mediated by Western's ILL staff, and articles are often delivered within 24 hours. To ensure your request is sent through RapidILL, make sure to include on the 'Article Request' form the ISSN of the journal that the article was published in.

However, in most cases your request goes to the Interlibrary Loan Department staff. Articles published less than 5 years ago are first evaluated for copyright compliance. They are then either routed through the RapidILL system, purchased (at no cost to you), or a request for a scanned copy is sent out to other libraries.

When we receive a copy of the requested article, a message will be sent to your Western email address letting you know that it has arrived.

You should log in to your ILLiad account immediately and view or download the article, even if you are not going to read it at that time. Due to copyright reasons, we cannot retain a copy of the article on your ILLiad account for more than 30 days.

For more information, contact the Interibrary Loan Department by emailing ILLiad@wwu.edu or calling 360-650-3076. More information can also be found on our website (link below).