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Stony Brook University

COLLECTIONS: Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery

Document Delivery Services

What is Document Delivery?
Document Delivery is a service that obtains for specified users copies of articles and book chapters needed for research that are held in the Stony Brook University Libraries' collections.  Requests are submitted through ILLiad.

There are two types of document delivery services available:  

Electronic delivery of articles/book chapters in the collection at Stony Brook University Libraries
Available to current students, faculty and staff.
Provides electronic delivery of an article or book chapter (subject to copyright restrictions) held in our collection.

Delivery of books to another campus location
Available to a limited group of patrons: 

  • Faculty and staff
  • Currently registered Stony Brook Southampton and Stony Brook Manhattan students
  • Registered graduate/post-doctoral students doing fieldwork out of state/out of country
  • Currently registered Distance Education students
  • Currently registered Main campus students only when the material requested comes from off-site storage or Stony Brook Southampton.

Document Delivery Policies - Electronic

Who is eligible?
Currently registered students, faculty and staff.

This service is not available to alumni, special borrowers, friends, relatives, spouses of Stony Brook University faculty, staff or students. Document Delivery requests will not be processed for patrons with excessive fines, blocks on Library account or an expired ID.

How are requests submitted?
All requests are submitted electronically through ILLiad.  Use your NetID and password.

Select the appropriate Document Delivery request option on the main request page.  Please provide as much information as possible.

What can be requested and how is it delivered?

  • Journal articles and book chapters from the main campus library, branch libraries, Health Sciences Library, Pollock- Krasner collection (at the Southampton campus library), and off-site storage
  • Delivered electronically via ILLiad
  • Limit of 60 scanned pages per request

Document Delivery Policies - Hard copy material

Who is eligible?

  • Faculty and staff 
  • Currently registered Stony Brook Southampton and Stony Brook Manhattan students
  • Registered graduate/post-doctoral students doing fieldwork out of state/out of country
  • Currently registered Distance Education students
  • Other currently registered Main campus students only when the material requested comes from off-site storage and/or Stony Brook Southampton.

This service is not available to alumni, special borrowers, friends, relatives, spouses of Stony Brook University faculty, staff or students.  Document Delivery requests will not be processed for patrons with excessive fines, blocks on their Library account or with an expired ID.

How are requests submitted?

All requests are submitted electronically through ILLiad

Select the appropriate Document Delivery request option on the main request page.  Please provide as much information as possible.  You must provide the call number and location of the item.  Submitting a request without this information may delay the processing of or cause the cancellation of the request.

What can be requested and how is it delivered?

  • Books from Melville library and branch libraries are delivered via campus mail to the Health Sciences Library and Stony Brook Southampton Library.  They are delivered via UPS to the Stony Brook Manhattan offices for patrons of that campus.
  • Books request by main campus patrons from off-site storage and the Health Sciences library must be picked up in the Interlibrary Loan office.  Books cannot be delivered to patrons out of state or out of country.
  • Document Delivery does not fill requests from main campus users for books from the main campus library or branch libraries.  Patrons must check these out themselves.  The only exception is books from the MASIC library, which will be delivered to the ILL offices for pick up.

Distance Education students:  Books and hard copy material owned by the University Libraries will be mailed to the patron’s address on file within 1-2 weeks of the request date.  Material that is not owned by Stony Brook University Libraries can also be requested through interlibrary loan.  This material is typically available within 2 weeks of the request.  It will be delivered to the patron’s address on file after receipt at Stony Brook University Libraries.  Please factor in these time constraints when requesting material.  The University Libraries will pay the cost of shipping items to patrons; however, borrowers are responsible for the cost of return shipping.  Material must be received by the University Libraries to avoid accruing fines.  Note: Interlibrary loan cannot be used for required class materials, e.g. required class texts.

How long for delivery and how much does it cost?

While we strive to deliver material within 24 hours of receiving the requst, certain circumstances such as availability and location of material and volume of requests may result in a slightly longer wait for requested material.  You can check the status of your request by logging into your ILLiad account.

There is no charge to the patron for this service.