Interlibrary loans

Undergraduates and PGCE students can request up to ten items (including renewals) per academic year

Master's students can request up to 25 items (including renewals) per academic year.

PhD students and academic staff have no preset limit for item requests, on the understanding that these requests are made on a reasonable basis to support your learning and work-related research.

Non-work related requests should be made via your local public library.

• Ensure that you are logged into your Bath Spa email account
• Check the Library catalogue and Journals A-Z to confirm the item isn’t already available
• Request an ILL using the links at the top of this page.

Please note: You won’t be able to request an ILL if your library account is blocked. Your account will become blocked if fines reach £10 or more. You can pay your fines in your library account. Once your fines are below £10 we can continue with your ILL request.

Most of the requests are sourced from another university's lending library in the UK. Other lending libraries will send articles and chapters to us, and we will forward these to you by email wherever possible.

Prior to its cyber attack in late October 2023, most of the requests went to the British Library, and a handful are still supplied by them.

As a general guide, articles and chapters delivered can arrive within one to two weeks.

Books will usually take longer than articles as they rely on the postal service. They usually take between one to four weeks to arrive.

Please note: some items may be more difficult to obtain, particularly if they are popular or very recent publications. This may delay the process.

We place a bookmark in each book showing the due date. Books will also be issued to your account upon arrival.

Please contact us at internp@bathspa.ac.uk if you want to renew an ILL. You are not able to renew your interlibrary loans like other Bath Spa library items via your library account. We will request a renewal for you, and update your account if this has been successful. You will receive email confirmation from us too, including the revised due date. Alternatively, we will contact you if a renewal is not possible.

Lending libraries may allow a loan to be renewed but they may also charge for it, so we will count this as another request off your allocation. If you are at your allocation limit for the academic year, any renewal charges we incur will be passed on to you and placed on your borrower's account.

All loans are subject to immediate recall by the lending library, so do keep an eye on your Bath Spa email for Library notifications.

ILLs are not renewable via your library account like other Bath Spa library items.

How to renew an ILL:

• Please contact internp@bathspa.ac.uk to notify us
• We will request a renewal for you and update your account if successful
• You will receive email confirmation with the revised due date
• We will contact you if we are unable to renew
• We will be charged for ILL renewals so we will count them as an additional request off your allocation.

Please note: all loans are subject to immediate recall by the lending library, so do keep an eye on your Bath Spa email account for notifications.

If you are already at your interlibrary loans allocation limit for the academic year, any renewal charges we incur will be passed on to you and placed on your borrower's account.

Yes. Many ILL journal articles and chapters can be supplied as a digital PDF by the lending libraries, which we will send on to your Bath Spa email address.

This means we can supply journal articles and chapters quickly. 

Please note: we are not able to process more than one article request from the same journal issue per person, as we are bound by copyright laws.

You do not need any specific PDF reader to open the document, such as Adobe.

Documents may only be used for private study and non-commercial research, and must not be shared.

If you have any questions, please contact internp@bathspa.ac.uk.

After a certain time, if the book hasn’t been returned, the lending library will charge for a replacement copy.

Lending libraries will vary in how much they charge for a replacement. The British Library’s charge is currently over £180 + VAT (unless the item is more expensive).

Even if the book is subsequently returned, there is still a 50% administration fee.

If these charges are made, they will be passed on to you, so keep an eye on your Bath Spa email for any Library notices.

If you think you may have lost an ILL book, or are unable to return it by its due date, please contact us at the first opportunity.

Please note: the EThOS service is currently unavailable due to a cyber attack.

While the EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service) service is offline, the British Library interim catalogue provides access links for theses which have been made available online by UK universities.

To find theses, use the "Advanced Search" to search for your topic of interest and select "Material Type" Theses from the drop-down menu.

Yes - we can supply make requests for study scores on your behalf.

Please note: we are unable to supply sets or parts of vocal scores for performance.