Q. Can I Interlibrary Loan (ILL) a textbook?

It depends! If it is a textbook we already own or have access to, it is against our policy to grant those requests because we already have the material. 

However, if we are not granting access to the material, we can attempt to request. Also, if the material has been deemed as lost or missing, we can allow the request to go through. To see if we already grant access to the material, we suggest using the Discovery Catalog Search to search via ISBN for the specific edition you need:

• Find the book using the catalog (on the library homepage).
• Select the result/title and then select the "Interlibrary Loan" button to start the request. If you are not signed in, you will be prompted to log in using your  MyTCC credentials. Then, you will see a form that is pre-filled from the record you selected. You may need to add more information about the material if you know it. If not, just fill out to the best of your abilities. Choose your pickup location and press "submit."
• (!) If it is not giving you the option to ILL, please use the blank form found here on this page and fill it in with as much information available about the item.

Please keep this in mind: textbooks are sometimes tricky to get through this service because many libraries need textbooks for their own students, but we can try. We also cannot get online versions of textbooks usually, due to copyright and licensing restrictions. Learn more that here.

The service is free for students, faculty, and staff.

Also keep in mind that it is unlikely you'll get to keep the book for the entire semester. TCC library does not control due dates for other libraries when we borrow their materials. 

It may be a better idea to ILL a chapter you need from the book until you can get a print copy. Keep in mind that copyright guidelines through our ILL system will only allow for limited portions to be copied up to 5 times from some titles in a single year for the entire institution. See the link below for more information.