Interlibrary Loans

Please note there may be delays to the ILL service as Canada Post resumes service following the national strike.

If we don’t have the book you’re looking for, you can request an interlibrary loan (ILL). Please note the following guidelines:

• This service is available to West Vancouver residents, students, staff, and business owners only.
• Books and periodical articles only may be requested.
• New books (those published in the past 12 months) are not available, however, you can make a suggestion for purchase.
• For books that our Library owns that are not available, you must place a hold on our copy.
• There is a limit of 5 active ILL requests at a time.
• Please allow a minimum of 10 days for receipt of material.
• We will notify you by email (or phone if you do not have an email address) once your ILL arrives.
• You have one week to pick items up; there is a $1 charge for books that are not picked up.
• Loan periods are 3 weeks for items from public libraries and 2 weeks for items from academic libraries. There are no renewals for ILL items.

You can visit or call the Help Desk at 604.925.7403 to request an item, or use the Illume catalogue (formerly Outlook Online) to make your request:

• Go to the Illume catalogue.
• In the top search box, click on the checked box to choose your search criteria and enter your search terms.
• Click on the magnifying glass icon to start the search.
• Click on the item and then click Request This Item (upper right).
• Fill out at least the required fields. For Create Password, use the last 4 digits of your phone number.
• Some lending libraries charge a fee, so include the amount you are willing to pay (0 – $25) in the Maximum Cost field.
• Click on Submit and wait a moment for your request to process.

Note: Illume does not work well with all versions of Internet Explorer (IE), so if you’re currently using IE, you may want to copy the Illume URL into another browser.