Loans to U.S. Libraries

For libraries in the U.S., the Library of Congress serves as a source for material not available through local, state or regional libraries. Requests are accepted from academic, public, and special libraries that make their own material available through participation in an interlibrary loan system. Participation is usually indicated by membership in one of the major U.S. bibliographic networks (OCLC, SHARES) or by a listing in the American Library Directory (Bowker) or the Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers (Gale).

LC's policies are complementary to the National Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States as established by the American Library Association. Directions for sending requests will be found at: Sending a Request Via OCLC, ISO, or Email.

For more detail on loan policies, see: Circulation Policies .