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How to Place a Hold: Home

This guide teaches you how to place a hold on a book owned by another library in the Abilene Library Consortium, especially for confusion between ILL and holds.

How to Place a Hold

Books available at any Abilene Library Consortium (ALC) library can be put on hold to be picked up at the ACU Library Circulation Desk. 
 
If you're coming through ACU's OneSearch, you'll see if any local libraries have access to the book and whether or not it is available: 
 
 
Click that "Retrieve Catalog Item" link, and you'll end up at the library catalog. Look for a purple button that says "Place A Hold On This Item
 
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Placing a hold communicates directly to the owning library, who pulls the book and sends it to us (or wherever else you indicate), and you are notified by email when the book is ready to be picked up. 
 
However, if a book is not available at any of the local libraries, you can submit an Interlibrary Loan (ILL) request, and we will look for libraries farther away who might be willing to loan to us. ILL involves more manual processing, and it takes longer, which is why we encourage you to use the faster hold system for locally accessible books. 

Straight to the Catalog

Want to bypass OneSearch and go straight to the ACU library catalog? Look no further: 

Still Confused?

If you still need help, please, contact the ACU Library!

Mastering the Jargon

  • hold: a book or other physical item available from another local partnering library (Hardin Simmons, McMurry, Howard Payne, Abilene Public Library.) Usually available in 1-3 days. 
  • interlibrary loan: a book or other physical item borrowed from any library outside of the local consortium. Allow 2-4 weeks for processing and shipping. 

Contact the Author of this Guide

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Kelsey Weems
Contact:
(325) 674-2398

Why Was My Request Cancelled?

Did you get to this page because an Interlibrary Loan (ILL) request was canceled? ACU is dedicated to your education, and we want to empower you to build skills that will make your research easier. Don't let that stop you from asking for help. Contact the ILL department by emailing acuill@acu.edu or contact a research librarian for questions of any kind. 

Check out the ILL Guide for more instructions and tips for accessing resources.