| Interlibrary Loan |
- Interlibrary Loan (ILL)ILL is a free lending service available to current Texas State students and employees. ILL borrows items from other libraries that Alkek Library does not own such as journal articles, books, DVDs, CDs—anything you might need for your research.
Use ILLiad, the online Interlibrary Loan request, to order your ILL items. Enter as much information as you know about the item you need, and the ILL staff will try to track it down.
Contact & Pick-up Info: 512.408-3996 or email with additional questions. Items can be picked up at the Ask Alkek Desk on the 2nd floor of the Library.
Check-out Periods & Renewals
Number of Items Allowed: All Texas State University borrowers are allowed to check out a maximum of 100 items. Within that limit only 4 audio/visual materials, such as DVDs and CDs, may be borrowed at any one time.
Graduate Students have two set due dates. Books checked out before May 31st are due May 31st, and books checked out between June 1st and December 31st are due December 31st. If you need a book for longer, you can renew the book - which means you can change your return date to the next due date. Renewals can be done online using 
or in person at the 2nd floor Ask Alkek Desk in Alkek Library. Call 512.245.3681 to renew by phone.
Book Catalog
Use the Library Catalog to search for print resources, multimedia resources, and ebooks. The Library Catalog also provides location and availability details. Use quotation marks for "phrase searching"
Each item in the library's collection has its own catalog record, like the one below.
Here you can see the item's location and call number and also its status. If it says AVAILABLE, the item should be on the shelf.
Take a look at the parts of the record that are hyperlinks. If you click on the author's name, you can see what else in the catalog he or she wrote.
The subject terms are useful not only for finding other materials that are closely related to the one you're looking at, but also for suggesting additional search keywords.
If you find a really relevant book in the catalog, look at the subject terms to see if they use different words to describe your topic than you did. Try incorporating those new words in your searches to get a different angle on your research.