Unfortunately, not every request can be filled despite the library's best efforts. For details on the specific reason your request was canceled, please refer to your emailed cancelation notification or contact us.
If this request cancellation derails your project, please schedule a free research consultation with a research librarian to help you find other materials that can help you.
In general, though, below are some typical reasons for interlibrary loan requests to be canceled.
- The ECU Libraries already own what was requested, so we instead have pulled or scanned the item for you, or referred you to those locally-owned materials in our Special Collections, Course Reserves, Reference, or another ECU collection.
- The requested item has not yet been published.
- Required course textbooks are often newly published editions that few, if any, libraries own yet -- or if they do, they are often in use by their students already.
- We had questions for you and did not hear back from you. This often happens if we cannot find your requested item with the citation details you have provided and we have asked for additional details from you.
- Sometimes fake, hallucinated citations are created by AI tools in chat responses and in papers/presentations created by AI tools.
- Newly released titles and popular titles (maybe due to news, movies, or social media) can sometimes not be available because of high demand.
- The only libraries that own a title are not willing or able to lend, digitally scan, or photocopy the requested materials. This can be because it is the only or one of the few existing copies, or due to copyright, licensing, or donor restrictions, or the other library's policies.
- We could not fulfill your request before your not wanted by date.
- Many libraries do not lend physical media (LPs, cassettes, CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, etc.).
- The requested title was only available as an ebook or streaming audio or video behind a subscription service that does not allow sharing between libraries or from libraries to patrons. These subscription services include Audible, Kindle, Apple Music, Spotify, Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, and others.
