Your form submission will be sent to the staff person in charge of buying that collection. That person will consider cost, availability, and Schlow's collection development policy to decide between trying to purchase the item or asking to borrow it from another library (Interlibrary Loan).

These special requests could take a long time to fill (weeks or a few months) and will not show up on your account unless we are able to order or borrow the item. You will be notified by email either when the title is available or if we are unable to fill this request.

For Interlibrary Loan (ILL) items, the ILL staff will search a statewide catalog to see if other Pennsylvania libraries own the item*. If so, the staff will ask if any library is willing to lend us the item.

ILL staff will contact you when your item arrives or as soon as they know your item is unavailable.

ILLs are free for you to borrow and enjoy until the due date. However, if you do not pick it up or no longer want it when it arrives, a $3 no pickup fee does apply. Other important things to know are:

• Schlow only requests from other libraries that will lend their items for free.
• If your item is not available through ILL, you must wait 6 months before requesting it again.
• Most libraries will not lend out:
  • Popular or new items less than 6 months old.
  • Special items such as genealogy, reference, magazines, or older items.
• ILL requests are complex and can take as long as 6-8 weeks to find out if your item can be acquired.

*As a measure to offset rising shipping costs and to maximize limited funds, effective April 17, 2023 the library will be providing Interlibrary Loan (ILL) services using only the Access PA catalog.

What does that mean for patrons requesting items?

Only library items held within Pennsylvania will be available for borrowing. Over 2,600 school, public, academic and special libraries within PA list their collections on Access PA for borrowing.  Currently, there are over 7.8 million items listed that are available for loan. 

Requests that are not listed as available through the Access PA catalog will be returned to patrons as unavailable through ILL. 

If you have any questions, please contact us at interlib@schlowlibrary.org and we will do our best to answer them.

Due to increasing costs as of 2019, this service is only available to patrons living within Schlow Library's service area (The Townships of College, Ferguson, Halfmoon, Harris, Patton and the Borough of State College). Other users are encouraged to contact the library closest to their home to determine what services may be available.

The Penn State University Library provides Interlibrary Loan services to PSU faculty and staff, including delivery directly to those served through the campus mail system. If you live in Schlow's service area and would still prefer that Schlow processes your request, then please fill out the form.

Please request eBooks and eAudiobooks through the Libby app or our Central PA Libraries Overdrive site by signing in with your library card number and searching for what you want.

If your item isn't listed among our Overdrive holdings, please scroll down to the Didn't find what you're looking for? section. If you find your item listed there, please click on Recommend below the cover. Our staff will consider purchasing the title if enough patrons ask for it.