HOW TO: Interlibrary Loan aka ILLiad (Instructions)

What is Interlibrary Loan?

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) services allow FIU students, faculty, staff, and staff to request articles and books that we do not have in our collection. This service is also available to clinical affiliates if they have registered for library access.

• By creating an ILLiad account, you can request books and articles via this nationwide (at times even global) automated system, which will retrieve such items for you from other libraries. 
• Books come in the mail and you may pick them up at the Medical Library.
• Electronic articles get e-mailed to you with a very fast turn-around time, often within the same day.
• Since it is a system that connects you to other schools, you need an additional ILLiad account. (Your plain Medical Library account will not suffice). Instructions for doing so are below.
• Note: for Step 5 below, if you lack a 14-digit Barcode which is on the back of your OneCard, (which may be the case if you are a clinical affiliate and never chose to get a OneCard), you may use your 7-digit PantherID instead.

How to Create An Interlibrary Loan (aka ILLiad) Account 

1. Go to the FIU Medical Library Website, medlib.fiu.edu, (which resolves to https://medicine.fiu.edu/resources/medical-library/index.html) and Click on the button that says "Services".

2. To request an article or book, you need an ILLiad account.  To the right you will see a box called "Forms" with a tab called "Article and Book Request".  Usually when you arrive at the "Services" page, you default to this tab.  Click the "ILLiad" link to log in or set up your account for the first time.

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3. If you do not yet have an ILLiad account, click on the button that says "First Time Users Click Here".

4. Fill out the registration form and click "Submit" Information. Be sure to adhere to steps 5a, 5b, and 5c (below).

a. Choose your status.  If you are a community-based faculty member or medical resident, select “Faculty”

b. When you create your account, make sure to set your Department as “COLLEGE OF MEDICINE” and Pickup Location as “Medical Library – Help Desk). It will not default to the correct department, so you must be sure to select the correct option. The options are available from a drop-down menu (see screenshot below).

c. If you lack a 14-digit Barcode (which is on the back of your OneCard that you may or may not have chosen to get), use your PantherID.

Learn the difference between your 7-Digit PantherID and your 14-Digit FIU OneCard. No matter what, you will have a PantherID. But you will not have 14-digit OneCard number unless you actually applied for a OneCard.

5. Once you create an account, staff at the Medical Library must activate your account. We will notify you of this via e-mail.

6. This is what the top of the landing page of your ILLiad account will look like:

7. You may start requesting items before we complete your registration and they will be processed. (You will not have to submit them again).

8. If you used your PantherID to create your account, use it when you log back into ILLiad to check the status of your order or make new requests.

Automatically Generate an Article Request with Find It @ FIU

Sometimes, the "Find It @ FIU" (Citation Linker) will be embedded in the the record of the article you are attempting to access.  It often appears in PubMed and Google Scholar.

If it does not, or fails to work, you can go through the library website and find the "Find It @ FIU" (Citation Linker) itself.

1. Go to "Research and Resources"

2. Click on the "Find It @ FIU (Citation Linker)"

3. Fill out the form with either just the PMID (PubMed ID) if the article has one, or simply the Journal Title + Article Title + Authors.  Usually this is sufficient to find the article you are looking for.  If the search fails, you may have to fill our more fields (i.e. ISSN, Volume, Issue, etc...)

4. The citation linker will indicate whether or not we have the article.  If we do not, the option to click "Interlibrary Loan will be there"

5. Upon doing so, you will be prompted to log into you Interlibrary Loan (aka ILLiad) account.

6. Upon logging in, you should be re-directed to an article request that the computer has already filled out.