A Primer on Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery

The smorgasbord of electronic resources and services becoming available to Rensselaer library users is amazing. When you can click and connect, it's great. But what do you do when you cannot just click and get the document you need? Answer: the Research Libraries' provide two important ways for you to try to obtain those publications.

First, there is the "good ole" Interlibrary Loan and Document Service. While some publications are now obtained within one to two days, the average delivery time for a book or journal article is ten to twelve days. Most costs are now fully covered by library subsidies, with the main exceptions being copies of dissertations and older technical reports that are not usually available from libraries. Researchers must submit their requests for interlibrary loan service via the Research Libraries' ILLiad information system.

The second important way to obtain needed publications that are not part of Rensselaer collections is via the Research Libraries' Ingenta gateway service for document delivery. Ingenta's database indexes more than 20,000 journals published during the past 12+ years. Rensselaer faculty and graduate students can order copies of many of these journal articles by using special accounts funded by the Research Libraries.

Other Rensselaer researchers may use Ingenta, but must send their document requests to Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery for processing.

Below is the essential interlibrary loan and document delivery lexicon:

• First Search - A vender interface used for many of the Libraries' bibliographic databases such as World Cat, ArticleFirst, Medline, etc. Some of the databases link to fulltext; some indicate if publications are available at Rensselaer; and many provide a way for you to request interlibrary loan service via ILLiad. (Look for the "ILL" button at the top of citation displays.)

• ILLiad - The Research Libraries' interlibrary loan system you use to submit and track requests for publications that are not part of Rensselaer's collections. Look for its link on RensSearch's Service menu. Although many databases available via the First Search gateway (e.g. World Cat, ArticleFirst) can route document requests to your ILLiad user record, other research databases, e.g., Web of Science, EI Compendex, are not linked to ILLiad and require you to transcribe their data into ILLiad workforms.

• Ingenta - A document delivery service available to Rensselaer faculty and graduate students for journal articles that are not available from Rensselaer collections. Journal titles that may be available at Rensselaer are marked in the database. Ingenta usually provides copies of documents within 48 hours with costs almost always subsidized by the Research Libraries. Look for its link also on RensSearch's Service menu.

• Library Catalog - The Research Libraries' local database indexing books, journals, government documents and other materials, including electronic resources, that are considered part of Rensselaer's collections. Look for its link on RensSearch's Resources and Collections menu.

• RensSearch - The Research Libraries main web page providing links to the Libraries' local catalog and research databases, as well as other library services and resources.

• World Cat - The "premier" First Search database indexing the collections of thousands of mostly academic and research libraries, including ours here at Rensselaer. HTML links also appear for many electronic versions of publications and files. Look for the "ILL" button at the top of citation displays to send requests to the ILLiad system.

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