Intercampus loans
Books from another campus within UKZN may be requested by any UKZN staff member or registered student and will be sent to the library of the borrower. You can also return the book via your home campus. Academic Reserves books cannot be borrowed from another library.
You make a request online via the catalogue if you have a My Library Account (please see the 'My Library Account' page on this guide). You can also login to your My Library Account and manually fill in the request form.
Interlibrary loans
Despite the current situation with the SA Post Office, books can be borrowed from other institutions. Please consult your subject librarian to see if an alternative or an online copy can be found. Journal articles are received as PDFs at no charge to the borrower. Again you can request an item using your My Library Account or the generic emails above.
Pay per view
If an article is not available at UKZN or via interlibrary loan, the Library may be able to purchase a copy on your behalf. This service is available to postgraduates and staff only. Please consult your subject librarian for help.
Before you do an interlibrary loan application there are several places you can check to see if a book or article is available:
Google Books
Sometimes part or whole of a book may be available via Google Books
Google Scholar
The item may be available in GS or, at the end of each reference, there might be an option something like "All 6 versions". Check this as sometimes a version of an article may be available via a source other than the original journal.
Sometimes the item may be available on Google, or, look up the journal and you may be able to get a copy of an article
Add the words "free download" to the end of the article title and an option may be available
There are also many sites 'out there' offering open access journals - for example Science open; Unpaywall, Arxiv (maths, physics, science, engineering, computer science and more); Paperity (multidisciplinary)
Scribendi is one of various sites that provides a list of such databases with information about them. Some you may have to register with but this is usllay free and quick.