"We are unable to obtain this item through Interlibrary Loan"
Answer
There are many situations in which Collections Sharing and Delivery staff will try to obtain material from another library, but we are unable to locate a library that is willing or able to supply an item. These reasons include:
Lending libraries’ restrictions: items may be displayed in DELCAT Discovery with a listing of libraries that own them, but it is up to the owning library to decide whether or not it can be loaned through ILL. Some libraries will not lend theses and dissertations, genealogy titles, audiovisual materials, test preparation guides, rare books, and new or popular books. Libraries outside of the United States may be unwilling to lend their materials overseas. Some publishers restrict access to their materials through licenses, and some audiovisual items and case studies are unavailable through ILL.If you need an item that cannot be loaned, you can contact the library that owns it to ask about using the material on site. For items that are currently available for purchase, you may wish to recommend that the University of Delaware Library acquire a copy.
The item does not appear to be held by any library. Some titles are indexed in DELCAT Discovery and Library databases, but no library has appeared to have purchased a copy of titles. This situation is very common with self-published and other titles that have not gone through a peer review process. We recommend contacting the librarian for your topic to find alternate sources for your project.
Conference proceedings. Many papers and posters presented at conferences are indexed in DELCAT Discovery and Library databases, but the proceedings from those conferences may not have been published. We recommend contacting the author directly if you would like to obtain a personal copy: authors’ information is sometimes available in the database that indexed the paper or poster.
Dissertations and theses: Some libraries will not lend dissertations and theses, and some authors do not permit online access to their work for several years after they graduate. If a dissertation or thesis is unavailable through ILL, we recommend contacting the author directly to request a personal copy.
Textbooks: Many libraries do not purchase textbooks to add to their collections, and if they do, will not lend textbooks as they are kept on reserve for their own students and faculty. If a request for a textbook cannot be filled through Interlibrary Loan, please work with the University of Delaware Bookstore to purchase or rent your required texts.
If you still have questions about your request's cancellation, please contact the Collections Sharing and Delivery Department.