Article delivery service impresses UW researchers

Feb. 14, 2006

Rapid article delivery, a new library service at UW-Madison that allows swift retrieval of articles from any scholarly journal not available on campus, has drawn rave reviews from university researchers.

In 2005, the UW-Madison Libraries introduced the program into Library Express (https://madison.hosts.atlas-sys.com/illiad/logon.html), an online tool that allows professors, graduate students and staff to obtain off-campus book chapters and articles. Although tens of thousands of journals are available on campus, sometimes a researcher needs an article from a journal that the university does not have. Although Library Express typically takes about one week to fulfill a request, rapid document delivery reduces the turnaround time to about one day.

The quick turnaround on a request is possible because library staff can purchase an electronic copy of the article directly from the publisher or a commercial document supplier for $25-$30, at no cost to the requester, instead of requesting a scanned copy from a library elsewhere in the country.

For more information, visit http://oscp.library.wisc.edu/response.html.