A few questions have come up in recent times about this so we thought it timely to highlight our practice on making decisions to purchase rather than Interloan.  In some situations Interloans staff may opt to outright purchase an item requested on Interloan.  Examples include where:

• staff are aware there is a wider need (more people benefit from access to the item) in which case a suitable electronic version is preferable
• the cost of buying the requested item is cheaper or quicker than sourcing via Interloan
• the item is hard to source via Interloan

Interloans staff will contact the requester to advise what is happening when these sorts of situations arise.