Nov 9, 2026 | Latest News & Updates
By Kip A. Darling in consultation with Liesl Rowe FHEA
This is a practitioner’s reflection on copyright and interlending, rather than legal advice.
Original illustration by M.H., created in response to the themes of this article. ©M.H., 2026.
Copyright questions in interlending are rarely dramatic. They more often arrive disguised as perfectly ordinary requests.
A student needs a chapter. A researcher needs an article. Another request for the same material appears a few days later. Most can be dealt with comfortably. Every so often, though, something gives us pause:
- Is this still an individual request, or part of a wider need?
- Can we rely on the declaration we’ve been given?
- Should we fulfil the request, ask another question or suggest a different route?
These aren’t necessarily gaps in the law. They’re the places where our professional judgement begins.
Let’s start with the legislation
For a UK interlending service supplying a copy to an individual user, the most relevant part of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is section 42A.
It allows library workers to make and supply a single copy of one article from an issue of a periodical, or a reasonable proportion of another published work, without infringing copyright, provided the conditions in the section are met.
The requester must provide a declaration in writing and agree that:
- they have not previously received a copy of the same material from a library;
- they need it for non-commercial research or private study;
- they will use it only for that purpose and will not supply it to anyone else; and
- to the best of their knowledge, nobody with whom they work or study is requesting substantially the same material, around the same time, for substantially the same purpose.
The library may proceed provided it is not aware that the declaration is materially false.
That last point matters. Section 42A doesn’t require an interlending team to prove that every declaration is true. Nor does it ask us to interrogate each requester’s colleagues, supervisors or course mates. It places the request within a framework of declared purpose and good faith.
Section 41 covers the related act of supplying a single copy to another library. For journal articles, the supplying library doesn’t have to meet the usual section 41 condition around whether the person able to authorise the copying can be identified.
These provisions were rewritten in their current form by the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Research, Education, Libraries and Archives) Regulations 2014. Those regulations followed the Hargreaves Review and its recommendation that copyright exceptions should be modernised for the digital age. The reforms also allowed declarations to be submitted electronically.
Hargreaves, then, helps explain how we arrived at the present framework. Section 42A is the provision on which everyday supply to an individual is based.
We fade to grey
The wording of section 42A is reasonably clear. Applying it across a busy interlending service is less straightforward.
Take a typical request for a book chapter. The user completes the declaration, gives non-commercial research or private study as the purpose, and provides no information that causes concern. There would normally be little reason not to proceed.
A few days later, another user requests the same chapter. That is not automatically a problem. Two people can quite independently need the same material.
Then a third request arrives, followed by a fourth, all from the same course.
At what point does a collection of individual requests start to look like teaching provision or coordinated demand?
The Act does not give us a number. It does not say that two requests are acceptable but five require intervention. The answer depends on what the service knows and what the pattern appears to show.
The first repeat request may be coincidence. A cluster of them might justify checking whether the work appears on a reading list, whether electronic access is available, or whether colleagues responsible for acquisitions or digitisation should be alerted.
That does not necessarily mean refusing the latest requester. It may mean recognising that fulfilling individual requests is no longer the only issue.
‘Substantially the same purpose’
The declaration asks whether somebody with whom the requester works or studies is making a request for substantially the same material and substantially the same purpose.
It is an important safeguard, but not a wonderfully precise test for collaborative work.
Imagine two researchers working on the same funded project. Both need the same article, but one is studying the methodology and the other is looking at the findings. Are those substantially the same purposes?
There may not be an obvious answer.
Now consider a requester who writes:
‘I need this article for our research group, so I can send a copy to everybody before next week’s meeting.’
That is clearer. Section 42A requires the requester to state that they will not supply the copy to another person. The appropriate response would be to explain that limitation and help the group find another route.
There might be licensed access that allows every member to read the article. A link may be shareable. A subscription, purchase or other permitted form of provision may be more suitable.
This is where good service matters. ‘ILL cannot be used in that way’ may be correct, but it is only half an answer. The useful question is, ‘Which option would support what you are trying to do?’
In good faith
In practice, most services need to accept declarations in good faith. Anything else would make routine document supply unmanageable.
That doesn’t mean ignoring relevant information.
If a requester declares an individual research purpose, and there is no evidence to the contrary, the ILL service can usually act on that declaration.
If the requester tells us that the copy will be distributed to a class, uploaded to a shared space or circulated around a project team, we now know something we can act on. It would be difficult to ignore that information simply because the correct box has also been ticked.
Repeat requests work in a similar way. One transaction may tell us very little. A pattern may reveal a wider access need.
The judgement lies in deciding when the information is significant enough to act upon and what a proportionate response looks like.
A few good examples
The following examples are hypothetical, but they reflect the sorts of situations an interlending team can encounter.
The lecturer and her students
Several students request the same chapter. Then their lecturer also requests it.
The lecturer may have an entirely separate reason for reading it. Equally, the pattern may suggest that the chapter is being recommended for a module without suitable access being in place.
Rather than trying to judge everybody’s intentions, the ILL service could alert the relevant library team. A different solution may be needed, even if the individual requests are still fulfilled.
Two’s Company
Two colleagues working together request the same article. Each says it is for their own research.
It’s hard to know whether their purposes are substantially the same. Unless the ILL service has information showing that a declaration is materially false, a detailed investigation may be unnecessary and disproportionate.
A much larger cluster of duplicate requests from the same duo might deserve a second look though.
Resource Sharing? Me too!
A requester openly states that they intend to pass the supplied copy to somebody else.
This isn’t necessarily an attempt to evade copyright. They may simply not know that the declaration limits the use of the copy.
Offering them a short explanation, followed by help to find a lawful alternative, is likely to be more useful than treating the request as a compliance incident.
The incomplete reading list
Requests for one chapter suddenly arrive from several students.
The ILL team may be the first to see that a resource has become important to a course. Request data can therefore do more than warn us about possible copyright concerns. It can identify where access arrangements are not sufficiently meeting demand.
The best solution may lie with acquisitions, licensed access or CLA-covered provision rather than continued ILL fulfilment one request at a time.
Tales from afar
A request arrives from an overseas institution with very little information about how the material will be used.
The supplying team may seek clarification, consult the terms of the network through which the request arrived, or ask a copyright colleague for a second view.
They may still decide to supply. The point is that asking reasonable questions is sometimes part of exercising reasonable judgement.
The free pass
Electronic resources bring another layer to the discussion.
Section 42A says that a contractual term attempting to prevent or restrict an act permitted by that section is unenforceable. Section 41 contains a similar protection.
That is wonderful to hear, but it doesn’t automatically make every electronic request uncomplicated. There may still be practical questions about access controls, technical protections, the amount being requested and the way the copy is produced and delivered.
A licence may also offer a better route than the statutory exception. It might permit sharing a stable link, access by a defined group, or another form of use that fits the requester’s needs more closely.
The aim isn’t to let every request slip through ILL simply because the exception exists. It is, or perhaps should be, to choose the most suitable lawful access route.
Automatic for the people?
One of the great improvements in modern interlending is that straightforward requests can move through systems quickly, sometimes with very little human intervention. That is good for users and good for busy ILL teams. Nobody particularly benefits from a member of staff manually approving hundreds of entirely routine article requests.
The difficulty is that some of the judgement calls discussed above depend on somebody noticing that a request is not quite routine.
A single request for a chapter may pass through an automated workflow without giving anyone reason to pause. If several requests for the same chapter arrive from the same course, though, a person looking at the pattern might start asking whether there is a wider access issue.
Likewise, something written in a request note might reveal an intention to share a supplied copy more widely, but only if that information is noticed by a human.
This creates a balancing act. How many checks can be added into automated workflows before the efficiency gained starts to vanish?
Putting every request through manual copyright checking would rather defeat the point of automation. At the other extreme, a completely hands-off workflow risks making some of these grey areas invisible.
Perhaps the useful middle ground is to think less about checking everything and more about deciding what ought to trigger a second look. That might include unusual request information, patterns of repeat demand, particular categories of request, or other circumstances specific to local workflows.
Automation doesn’t cancel out professional judgement, then. It simply changes where we seek to apply it.
Which brings us back to the spirit of Hargreaves. We want systems that enable access efficiently, while still leaving enough room for a human being to notice when an ordinary request has become something a little less ordinary.
Who am I to judge?
For me, a workable approach has four components.
- Accept declarations in good faith unless there is a reason not to.
- Pay attention to what the requester is saying. A signed declaration doesn’t cancel out conflicting statements elsewhere in the request.
- Notice patterns. ILL offers us an early glimpse of unmet teaching and research demand.
- Be prepared to redirect rather than refuse. A request that doesn’t fit section 42A may still be entirely reasonable, but it may need a different solution.
None of this produces perfect certainty. It does, however, provide a defensible and human way to operate a service while working within shades of grey.
A compromise
There are two tempting extremes.
The first is to become so cautious that any uncertainty results in refusing a request. That protects the ILL service from making difficult decisions, but it may also prevent activity that the law was designed to allow.
The second is to regard every grey area as a convenient opening and avoid asking questions that might complicate fulfilment.
Neither feels right.
The space between them is undeniably messy. It requires us to read a request, consider what we know and decide whether the proposed use still fits the exception.
The same compromise applies to our systems. We can introduce so many compliance checks that automation becomes cumbersome, or so few that we lose sight of the circumstances in which judgement is needed. So, when we’re investigating whether a process can be automated, we also need to consider where human attention is necessary.
It’s beneficial for us to discuss difficult cases as a community. Local guidelines are useful, of course, but so are conversations between practitioners. Hearing how another ILL team has handled repeat requests, collaborative projects, international supply or automated workflows can expose assumptions in our own practices and help the community develop a more consistent approach.
There will probably never be one simple answer for every uncertain request. I’m not sure there should be, and it is precisely these kinds of puzzles that make our line of work so interesting.
Interlending depends on trust, reciprocity and a willingness to make careful decisions with incomplete information. Copyright legislation gives us a framework. Our shared professional practice fills in the gaps.
In other words, shades of grey aren’t something to be embarrassed about. They are simply where the good thinking happens.
FIL would be interested to hear how other members approach these cases:
- At what point do repeat requests become a pattern?
- When do you seek more information, and when do you accept the declaration and proceed?
- Where have you chosen to put human checks into an otherwise automated workflow, and why?
Oct 29, 2026 | Latest News & Updates
By Finlay Beatson, Library Support Advisor, University of Dundee
When Kip suggested this little morsel to me, I hadn’t quite realised what a unique situation it was. For the vast majority of our interlending colleagues, we have one or perhaps two libraries to keep track of, each of them likely in close proximity to each other for ease of access. The University of Dundee has four libraries; two on Main Campus (our Main Library and Duncan of Jordanstone Library), one in Ninewells Hospital, and another across the river in the heart of Fife – our Kirkcaldy Campus library! The Robertson Trust Medical Library in Ninewells is approximately a 10 minute drive from our Main Library, while Kirkcaldy is a whopping 50 minutes away. We also have three remote store ‘rooms’ we pick from, which brings the grand total of locations to seven – quite the number for a tight-knit institution! And, believe it or not, there used to be more!
University of Dundee Library at night, John Lord, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
So how does having seven locations influence our Resource Sharing service, especially considering our ILL department is based at Ninewells? Organisation is a huge factor in this, as well as communication. As of now we are quite the well-oiled machine; ILLs have always been based at Ninewells and we have always had our seven locations, so the dynamics within our locations are iron-clad. Books are transferred between the three Dundee-based libraries and Kirkcaldy campus every week, each with separate boxes that line the wall of the Main Library, slips are colour-coded based on library (Ninewells is bright blue, if you must know!) and whether they are internal or external titles, just as a few examples! Requests are placed as early as possible so they can be picked and transported to our ILL department that day, minimising wait time between processing and posting. On the other end, we add an extra week to our due dates, just in case there is an unexpected delay on the way to our mailroom.
Photograph © Finlay Beatson. Reproduced with permission.
Speaking of wait time, deciding the most optimal routes between sites considers multiple factors. Firstly, there’s demand. Which sites are most popular with our ILL patrons, what titles see the most footfall, and where are we going to need to spend the longest? Secondly, location; how many locations can we reach in the shortest time? Luckily for us, two of our stores are located almost underneath two libraries, so hitting two birds with one stone has never been easier. And thirdly… The gas tank. Books need to traverse about in one piece! Our devoted logistics attendant keeps a careful eye on the mileage – we certainly couldn’t be providing the service we do without them! Ninewells is always last on the stop, Main Library always the first.
University of Dundee Kirkcaldy: Kilnburn, Wikimedia Commons. Used under an attribution-only licence.
Handling numerous libraries is one of a few great hurdles in Resource Lending; not only is there different stock and requirements, but oftentimes colleagues are neither trained in Interlending nor have the capacity to. We’re all aware of how busy HE libraries can be – and how bitty Interlending can really be. Inter Library departments can contain only one or two people, sometimes across different sites, meaning forwarding emails and discussing requests over Teams is more commonplace. We risk accepting requests without physically seeing the book until it arrives at our doorstep, trusting our colleagues to make the judgement on whether it is truly suitable for lending or not and to notify us. This can lead to a few mishaps, I know I’ve spent way too long rubbing pencil marks out of books only to receive word I’ve missed some, or we’ve had to reject requests based on quality and rarity in other sites. Though whether we have one, seven, or even twenty-three sites (looking at you, Bodleian, with love), providing the best service is always top priority, and I’m sure all of us will remain as passionate as ever about this small yet mighty facet of Library Services.
Sep 22, 2026 | Latest News & Updates
By Lesley Gooding, Principal Library Assistant, University of Southampton Library
In August 2026, our Associate Director, Dr Jonathan Chipp, presented the Acquisitions team at Hartley Library, University of Southampton, with a beautiful green plush frog from the Interlend 2026 Conference.
Phil had originally been given to Jonathan as a thank you for co-presenting a session on the Research Libraries UK (RLUK) Collections Strategy Network (CSN) and its vision for redefining interlending. Jonathan generously passed him on to us.
We immediately adopted the name Phil (for FIL), and a space was created for him on the ILL shelves at Hartley Library. He quickly settled into his new habitat, and we decided that his first task should be a tour of the library, as seen in the attached photos.
(Photos by Lesley, location selection by Verna, postcard collage created by Dace)
Left-hand photo – this is from a display called Hidden Hartley, which included some of the interesting finds discovered within the stacks during a large stock move two years ago – including a Darth Vader helmet! Phil seemed particularly interested in the helmet.
Underneath are the Reference Only ILL books, which are signed in and out.
Centre section – the Hartley Library entrance from outside and the foyer.
Right-hand photo – this is where ILL books are kept awaiting collection. We have our own custom-made paper bands to distinguish ILL books from our own library books.
Left-hand photo – this is the most photographed part of the library: our spiral staircase. It is very popular for graduation photos and has even been the setting for at least one marriage proposal that we know of.
Phil waited hopefully for a while. Perhaps he was expecting a frog princess.
Other photos
- The many ILL parcels sent out each day
- The IT Tech Hub
- The stained glass, which forms part of a design by Ray Bradley representing the DNA code of fish
- Some of our many bookshelves
While exploring the shelves, Phil was pleased to discover The Little Frog’s Guide to Self-Care by Maybell Eequay – reassuring evidence that Hartley Library takes the wellbeing of its amphibian visitors seriously.
He was rather less enthusiastic about finding Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog!
A little bit about the library and us
The Hartley Library is the main library on our Highfield campus. We have three other specialised site libraries: Winchester School of Art (WSA) Library; the Health Services Library (HSL) at University Hospital Southampton for NHS and University patrons; and the National Oceanographic Library at the Waterfront campus.
WSA and HSL deal with their own ILL requests, with our assistance if needed. Otherwise, all other requests come to us at Hartley Library.
ILL is part of the University of Southampton Library’s Acquisitions team. At present, we have three colleagues at Hartley Library working on ILL requests and purchasing: Lesley, Verna and Dace. Both Verna and Lesley have been with the University in various roles for over 30 years, and Dace joined us three years ago.
I am very proud to work in Acquisitions on Interlibrary Loans with such a great, hardworking team. We often receive positive feedback from our patrons, which is always well deserved.
ILL is a very individual service, and knowing that we have helped someone track down that elusive reference – and seeing them complete their PhD – is very satisfying. We often feel like detectives, and one of us was once described as a wizard for locating obscure items!
I very much enjoyed the Interlend 2026 conference this year. I was particularly interested in the presentation by Charlotte Jones from the Barbican Music Library, as sourcing orchestral scores is a very labour-intensive task. It is always great to meet other ILL colleagues, exchange thoughts and ideas, and catch up on new developments.
We have loved having Phil in our office. The frog is a real talking point, has brightened our days and has certainly caught people’s imagination.
There was even talk on a family WhatsApp that a knitted Dalek called Derek may have a little crush on Phil.
Who knows where Phil will go next…
May 12, 2026 | Articles
Editor’s note
We’re really pleased to share this reflection from Amanda Foster, looking back on her time as Chair of the FIL Committee.
Amanda led FIL through a particularly challenging and transitional period for the interlending community, and her piece captures both the realities of that time and the strength of the community that carried it forward.
We’re very grateful to Amanda for sharing her experiences, and for her continued contribution to FIL.
Thank you Amanda!
Reflecting on my time as Chair of the FIL Committee
By Amanda Foster, Content Delivery and Copyright Librarian, Northumbria University Library
From the issue desk to interlending: my career journey
I began my career at Northumbria University Library in September 2001, having just completed a BA (Hons) in History at Northumbria. My first role was in the Customer Support team — working on the issue desk, stamping books. It was, without question, the best job. I stayed in customer service roles for a decade, becoming a Senior Library Assistant in 2005, and during that time I completed my Masters in Librarianship at Northumbria in 2010.
The move into interlending came about through a restructure in 2012, when I took on the Inter-Library Loans Coordinator role. It was a new direction, but one I quickly came to enjoy. In 2015, my role evolved further into the position I hold today: Content Delivery and Copyright Librarian. This brought together the ILL work with copyright and reading list responsibilities — a broad and varied remit that has kept me engaged and challenged ever since.
Discovering FIL
FIL came into my professional life through the interlending role, and it quickly became an important part of my practice. The community it offered — the knowledge sharing, the networking, the sense that others were grappling with the same challenges — was genuinely valuable, and the conferences were always a highlight of the professional calendar.
Stepping into the Chair role
I had only been on the FIL Committee for a short time when, in 2021, Chris Beevers asked me to take on the Chair role following the sad departure of Claire Hordern from Manchester. It was not the circumstances any of us would have chosen, and I was conscious of the weight of stepping into a role left vacant so suddenly. I was, however, genuinely honoured to be asked.
Chairing during and after COVID: a strange and challenging time
Taking on the Chair role in 2021 meant stepping into one of the most turbulent periods in living memory for the library sector. The 2020 FIL conference had been cancelled — understandably, given the circumstances — but it was a real blow, not least because it had been due to be held in Newcastle. To have that taken away, on home turf, was particularly disappointing.
To compensate, we put together a one-day interlending event in November 2020, and that spirit of finding creative solutions in difficult circumstances was something I saw right across the community during that period. People pulled together in ways that were genuinely impressive. The online events were challenging for all of us — we all had to get used to a very different way of working — and we certainly missed the networking that had always been such a vital part of the in-person conferences. The pre-COVID two-day events, held in lovely venues and hotels, with the conference dinner as a perennial highlight, felt very far away.
That said, I believe the shift to virtual working has changed us permanently and in some important ways for the better. The way we work daily, and the way we interact as a community, has changed immeasurably. I think the virtual dimension will, in the main, continue — and that is not entirely a bad thing.
Pivotal moments: decisions that mattered
One of the standout moments of my time as Chair was the decision to drop the FIL membership fee. It sounds like a simple administrative change, but it was anything but — we spent a long time debating it and consulting with members before reaching a decision. The impact has been significant: it has genuinely reduced the administrative burden on the committee and removed a barrier to engagement. I am proud that we saw it through.
Another memorable moment came when I was contacted by Kate Parson in connection with the call for speakers for Interlend 2023. Kate reached out to tell us about the EU project EODOPEN — a fascinating initiative exploring cross-border access to library materials, involving over 80 European libraries through the Ebooks on Demand (EOD) consortium. It was a wonderful reminder of the reach and relevance of the work FIL does, and of the connections that are possible when we look beyond our own institutions and national boundaries.
Committee and collaboration: the people who made it
I have genuinely loved my time on the FIL Committee, and so much of that comes down to the people. Working with Chris Beevers and Helen Hall in the early days was a real pleasure. More recently, it has been wonderful to get to know Jo Cox from the British Library more closely, and it is brilliant that Jo remains on the committee as a permanent member.
I must also give a huge mention to Joanne Docherty, who has done a fantastic job managing the accounts — an area I don’t think any of us felt particularly confident stepping into. The addition of Sarah Hornby as Secretary has also been a hugely positive development for the committee.
The committee also allowed me to engage with some genuinely exciting technical developments. The rise of WHELF+ has been significant, and the discussions around ISO lending — and the testing we carried out with fellow committee members — were a highlight of that more technical side of the work.
Conferences and events: the joy of bringing people together
Over the course of my time on the committee, I have been involved in arranging many conferences and sessions, both online and in person. It was wonderful to see a partial return to in-person events last year, and particularly special to co-host an event between Newcastle and Northumbria with Sarah. For some of us, it was the first time we had seen each other face-to-face in many years. I cannot overstate how lovely that was — a real reminder of what we had all been missing.
Looking back, looking forward
FIL matters because the interlending community matters. The knowledge sharing, the cross-sector connections, and the practical support for people doing demanding and often under-recognised work are all worth preserving and nurturing. I hope that the forum continues to find ways to bring people together, whether in person or online, and to remain a genuinely useful and welcoming space for everyone who works in this area.
I am also looking forward to continuing to contribute. On 22 April, I joined Sarah Hornby and other colleagues for a NAG ‘Coffee and Chat’ session on interlibrary loans and the CONARLS scheme — another opportunity to share knowledge and keep those important conversations going across the community.
It has been a privilege to serve as Chair of the FIL Committee. Thank you to everyone who made it such a rewarding experience. I have every confidence that Kip will do a fantastic job in the role — I wish him all the very best, and I am genuinely excited to see what comes next for FIL under his leadership.
