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Portland State University Library is committed to providing equivalent access to library
materials for all patrons, no matter where you live. You are eligible for distance services
if you are a current PSU student, faculty, or staff member living more than 30 miles
from PSU campus. This video walks you through how to use those services.
You can find this information on our Distance Services page as well. To get to the Distance
Services page, click on Distance Users.
Let’s start with how to get a book.
If you find a book that you want and it is available on the library shelves, click the
“place hold” button. When you place your request, change the drop-down menu option
to “Your home address” to have us mail the book to you. You are responsible for return
postage to return the book by mail, or you can drop it off at a nearby Summit library.
Summit is a regional consortium of libraries that share materials and provide services
to each other’s patrons. You can find books owned by other Summit libraries using a regular
catalog search, just the way you find PSU’s books. To locate your nearest Summit library,
use the member map.
If you want a book that’s available through Summit, you have a few options. Here are three
ways to pick up a book at a library if that’s convenient to you. If you live near a Summit
library where the book is available, you can go to that library and check out the book.
If you’re planning a trip to PSU campus, you can request the summit item and select
PSU Library to have the book delivered to the circulation desk here. If you want to
pick up the book from a different Summit library, bring your PSU ID card to that location to
be "adopted" as one of that library's patrons. Select that library when you request the book
to have it delivered there.
If Summit libraries aren’t convenient to you, we can mail you the book instead. Summit
books take 3-5 days to get to the PSU library, so plan accordingly. Fill in a blank interlibrary
loan form to have us mail a Summit book to you.
The first time you use InterLibrary Loan, you can set your preferred loan delivery method
to "Mail to Address" for home delivery, if you live more than 30 miles from campus. If
you already have an InterLibrary Loan account and need to change your delivery preference,
please email ill@pdx.edu.
You also use interlibrary loan to get books that aren’t available at PSU or through
Summit. Click the “request item through interlibrary loan” button to place your
request. Interlibrary loan books take up to 12 days to get to the PSU library, depending
on where we borrow the item from.
You also can access PSU Library’s complete collection of journals and articles. Many
of these are available 24/7 through our online databases with your odin username and password.
If you need an article that is only available in print or on microform, fill in an interlibrary
loan form to have the article scanned and delivered to you by email.
If you need an article that is not available through the PSU library in any format, you
can request it through interlibrary loan and we will do our best to get it for you, usually
in electronic format. Please do not pay for access to articles - you are already paying
with your PSU tuition. We do not charge you for using interlibrary loan.
If you have any questions, please ask us!