Interlibrary Services

There are three Interlibrary Services units on Cornell's main campus. Each handles Borrowing for the Cornell community and Lending outside the Cornell community.

Borrowing for the Cornell community

Contact information for the five pick-up locations:

Cornell University Library offers the following services to its users:

Borrow Direct

Books which are currently unavailable or not owned by Cornell may be requested through the virtual catalog of Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Harvard and MIT. These are requested directly by the library patron. Registration is not required. There is no fee for this service.

Interlibrary Loan

Items not owned by Cornell may be borrowed or a photocopy may be obtained from outside institutions. Choose the unit (Olin, Mann, Law, Geneva, Veterinary Library) which best suits your needs. A one-time registration is required. The unit you select during your initial registration will be the pick-up location for all material borrowed on Interlibrary Loan. There is no fee for this service.

Document Delivery

Document Delivery is an electronic document delivery service offered by Cornell University Library. Faculty, staff and students may request copies of journal articles, book chapters and other materials located in the print collection of the Cornell University Libraries. Documents will be scanned and made available on the web as PDF files. There may be a fee for this service.

Lending Cornell Material Outside Cornell

Material held by Cornell University Library may be requested by institutions and individuals not affiliated with Cornell.

Lending Cornell Material via OCLC

Cornell University is a supplier in OCLC. All requests made to Cornell University for loan of materials can be sent to the symbol 'COO' in OCLC. If you are able to request by this method, we will not accept requests in any other form from your library. All OCLC requests initially go to the Olin unit and are routed as necessary. OCLC users should consult the OCLC Policies Directory for fees and lending policies (login required).

Cornell has consortial arrangements with the following:

• RLG
• SCRLC
• SUNY (Mann, Vet and Geneva)
• RAPID - articles only, requested through the RAPID system
• NELLCO (Law)

Lending Cornell Material to Businesses, Individuals and Non-Networked Institutions

If you are a business, institution or an individual and do not have access to OCLC you may borrow from any of the Cornell Ithaca campus libraries by submitting your request via our Lending webform. Please check individual unit details as lending policies may vary.

Businesses, organizations and institutions not affiliated with Cornell can request loans of books and articles from the Cornell Libraries collection.

Individuals not affiliated with Cornell can request articles directly from the Cornell Libraries collection but must request loans only through their local library.

Interlibrary Services Units at Cornell

• Olin Library

• Mann Library

• Law Library

Interlibrary Services at Weill Cornell Medical Library

Weill Cornell Medical Library in New York City conducts separate interlibrary loan operations and has a separate catalog: Weill Cornell Medical Library Catalog (Tri-Cat).