Step 4

Search and verify.

Once you have determined that an item should be requested through ILL, check union catalogs for owning libraries. The first stop for most libraries will be WorldCat through WorldCat Resource Sharing.

ILLiad libraries will search...how?
ClioRequest will send requests to the Review File (on the Resource Sharing page of WorldCat) for searching and processing
Other libraries will begin searching from the "Search" page in WorldCat Resource Sharing.

Search by book title or journal title to find the best WorldCat record for requesting the item.

For tips on searching WorldCat, see OCLC WorldCat Resource Sharing Tutorials: Overview, User Interface and Logon, Borrower Basics (covers searching).

If you cannot find the title, or if an article request does not match what you find, you may need to do more work for verification. This is called "extensive searching." Is the book too new? Is it a dissertation that may be uncataloged? Is it a foreign title that may not be in WorldCat? Other catalog sources to check are:

RLG Union Catalog (subscription database)
British Library Integrated Catalog
COPAC (union catalog of the research libraries of the UK and Ireland)
KVK (Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog, accessing the libraries of Germany and the national libraries and union lists of the West)

For journals, check Ulrichs for the journal title.

Use research databases the free internet to verify a citation. You may have to guess which library resource your patron used. Some valuable resources are also free online, such as:

See Interlibrary Loan Search & Verification Guide for more extensive searching tools.


	Fun Interactive Exercise!
	Extensive Searching
	Make an extensive searching exercise with various problem requests, using tools that are very common and/or free: ERIC, PubMed, Dissertation Express, WorldCat, Google, Ulrich's


	Fun Interactive Exercise!
	Search Strategies
	Have users formulate a search strategy for several different material types: conference proceedings, books, journal articles, audiovisual materials, newspaper microfilm reels?

If you found the WorldCat record you need:
Forward to Step 5: Request the item

If you could not find a matching record or need more information about an article citation:
Forward to Cancel request

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