Library Services FAQ: Interlibrary Loan FAQs

Special collection are, well, special.  First check online repositories and the HathiTrust (as most libraries are digitizing their special collections).  Some libraries will lend special collection items (at a cost).  The Library of Congress lends some rare or hard-to-get items, but they require 20 days to process requests, and, all loaned items are for in-library-use only.  So, the answer to this question is that the ILL librarian will do their best and will communicate with you on the likelihood of getting the item.