Inter-Library Loans

Many English language books are available to borrow from the British Library On Demand service, but very recently published books may not be available for loan. If the book is not in stock at the British Library, other locations will be tried.  We will only request books internationally if they are not available for reference in the UK.

The loan period is usually 4-6 weeks, subject to the supply library's recall. Heavily-used books may be lent for a shorter time.

Some books are lent for reference use in the Library only. This condition is made by the lending library and must be observed.

Please choose the option for ‘ILL requests for books’ in the request type field on the inter-library loan request form and allow as much lead time as possible, so that there is enough time for requests to be processed and for lending libraries to post the books to us.  Please be sure to come and collect your books once they arrive, as the library must pay for each inter-library loan.

If you only require one chapter of a book, we may be able to obtain this as a scan, so please click in the request type field on the ILL request form and choose the ‘ILL requests for chapters and articles’ option.

Journal articles and book chapters will be supplied as digital files (PDFs) where possible and emailed directly to you.

Please complete the interlibrary loan request form above to request single articles and chapters.

Due to copyright restrictions, you cannot request more than one chapter from a book or one article from a single journal issue.

If you require multiple articles or chapters from the same book or journal issue, we can try to borrow the whole book, or try to help you to find a library in London where you can consult the requested item/s.  

Due to copyright restrictions you must not print more than one copy of a digital file or share it with anyone else.

British Library files 

To access secure electronic files received from the British Library you may need to register for a British Library Online Account.

You will then be given a username and password, which you can use to access all future ILL files received from the BL. 

You will have to download your file in the first 30 days after you receive it, after which the link will expire.  

For more information about retrieving and reading your digital files, see the British Library’s help page for the On Demand service. 

Many UK theses are available from the British Library's Electronic Theses Online Service ETHOS. 

To order a digital copy of a thesis yourself, you will need to register and login, though you can search without registering.

Many theses are available for immediate download free of charge. If a thesis has not yet been digitized there may be a charge.

Goldsmiths staff and students have access to Proquest dissertations and theses: UK and Ireland, and you can access Proquest Dissertations and Theses Global via Senate House Library.

We aim to process all inter-library loan requests within five working days.

Articles and chapters can take anywhere between two hours to two weeks to be delivered, depending on UK availability and processing by the supplying library. Books will take at least one to two weeks, depending on supplying libraries and postal services.

To avoid delays, please include as much information as possible in the request form. Please include the last date that this item will be useful to you in the “Date required by” field.

You can check the progress of requests on your Library Account. We will add notes to your account to indicate what stage your request is at. 

If you have any questions, please contact us using the details below.