ILL/DD FAQs

About ILL/DD
• Department Contact Information

Document Delivery and Interlibrary Loan
214-828-8184
214-820-7709
interlibloan@bcd.tamhsc.edu

Billing questions:
BHSL Administrative Assistant
214-828-8247
214-820-2372


• What are Document Delivery and Interlibrary Loan?

Document Delivery (DD) is a free service in which the Library provides requested journal articles or book chapters to affiliated users. DD service is available whether the materials are in the Library’s collection or must be obtained through other libraries. Materials will be delivered electronically in most cases (see What are the delivery options?).

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is the process of requesting materials not owned by Baylor Health Sciences Library from other libraries.

• Who can use the Document Delivery and Interlibrary Loan services?

Affiliated users are faculty, staff, employees and students of BHCS or BCD, and North Texas area dentists.

• How do I request materials?

Each request should be on a separate form.
Requests made by phone or email will not be accepted.

There are several options for requesting materials:

• A Baylor Health Sciences Library request form available on our ILL page and in the library. Completed forms can be faxed or brought to the library
• The Baylor Health Sciences online request form
• SFX-accessible through OVID, Scopus, Compendex, Web of Science, Pubmed and MD Consult using this button:
  
• Loansome Doc -accessible through Pubmed. Users must register through the DD/ILL department before using this option

• What will other libraries loan?

Other libraries will generally loan material that they circulate to their own patrons. Often excluded are: Textbooks, reference books, course reserve books, rare books, microfilm, dissertations, technical reports or audiovisual material. Entire issues or bound volumes of periodicals are rarely loaned.

• How long does it take?

Routine Requests:

• The amount of time it takes to receive materials depends on the type of material being requested and whether BHSL owns it
1. If BHSL owns the material it will usually be available within 24 hours.
2. If BHSL does not own the material then it will depend on the type of material being requested:
• Books are mailed via the US Post Office and take 5-14 working days.
• A copy of an article from a journal or chapters/pages from a book will take 3-14 working days.
• Delivery time is often determined by the obscurity of the material being requested. It may take longer to find a library willing to copy or lend material that is very old, very new or if few libraries own it.


Rush Requests:

• Please limit Rush requests to patient care emergencies only.
• Rush requests are filled within 24 hours and on the same day whenever possible .
• Availability of rush service is contingent on adequate library staffing and number of hours remaining in the day.
• Books can not be requested as rush materials.

• What are the delivery options?

E-delivery is the default delivery method.
Every effort is made to deliver materials as requested; however, to insure the best quality copy, an alternate method may be chosen at the discretion of the Document Delivery department.
Books are picked up at the library. If you are located off campus, contact the DD/ILL department for additional delivery options.

Delivery options for copies include:

• E-delivery w/delivery notification-copy of article is posted to a BCD server
• Mail-interoffice or postal
• Fax
• Pick up

• How long can I keep books borrowed through ILL?

The Lending library establishes the loan period. Loan periods range from 2-4 weeks.

• Can I renew books borrowed through ILL?

Renewal requests should be made within 48 hours of the due date and renewals are granted at the discretion of the lending library. A limit of one renewal request per book is permitted.

• Additional Information and Suggestions

• Providing complete and accurate information on the request form helps reduce processing time. Abbreviations and incomplete or incorrect information on the request form delays the processing of a request. For help in verifying a citation or translating abbreviations, call 214-828-8151 or 214-820-2377 and ask for a reference librarian.
• Make a copy or a note of each request for your records. This reduces the number of duplicate requests and can be used when checking the status of a request.
• The DD/ILL department will make every attempt to contact you if there has been a delay in your request. Contact the DD/ILL department if you haven’t received your copy/book within two weeks of submitting the request: 214-828-8184; 214-820-7709; interlibloan@bcd.tamhsc.edu

Problems or Questions
• I’m trying to retrieve my electronically delivered document. Why won’t it open?

There are many reasons why the document won’t seem to open. Several of them depend upon the configuration of your computer and its software. Without attempting to provide comprehensive troubleshooting for your computer, here are a few suggestions that have helped other patrons in the past.

• Can’t Login. Remember, the Ariel server is case sensitive. You need to enter your email address and PIN exactly as it appears in the email you received when you attempt to login.
• Be patient! Some of these documents have been converted and re-converted to other formats in the course of their arriving to you. It may take several seconds, or up to a couple of minutes for the document to load completely. Even if the window that opens says “done” in the bottom left corner, it may still be loading the document. Usually, you can see the “working” icon in the top right corner of the browser window still moving. Or, if you place the mouse pointer over the word “done” you should see the hourglass meaning it’s still working.
• Page says Default. All documents are supposed to be sent with a cover sheet explaining BHSL's copyright policy notice. Sometimes however, the copyright sheet gets corrupted and instead a sheet that just says "Default" on it is sent as the first page of your document instead. This can, to a patron, look like some kind of error has occurred with opening the document. Don't worry, the rest of your document is there. Just scroll down to the second page to see the beginning of the document you requested.
• Bad document. Sometimes all that converting and reconverting can fatally corrupt the document. In this case the document will not open or will open but be incomplete or unreadable. If this is the case contact the Interlibrary Loan Librarian to have your document checked and resent if necessary.
• Pop up blockers can prevent the document from opening in another window. If this is happening to you there should be some indication of that in the form of an audible beep and a warning message at the top of the browser window. If so follow the instructions in the warning message to allow pop ups from the BHSL web site.
• Java is used by some versions of Adobe Acrobat to run applications that open documents and the like. You must make sure that your Internet browser is running Java. To do this in Microsoft Internet Explorer click on Tools in the menu bar at the top of your browser and choose Internet Options… Click on the Advanced tab and scroll down to the Java heading. Make sure the box under this heading is selected.
• Adobe Acrobat is the program used to view most PDFs. There are currently 4 versions of Acrobat available, with several updates available for each of those versions. You could be getting some kind of error message to the effect that Acrobat can’t open the document, or just see nothing happening at all, or Acrobat opens up with no document, or any number of possible outcomes. To eliminate several possible problems, make sure that you have downloaded and installed the latest version of Acrobat. It is available for free from Adobe here:
  


• There is another common problem with Adobe Acrobat that may be causing your document not to open. Sometimes, when you try to open a document in Acrobat, the program will determine while starting up, that there’s an updated version available. In this case, Acrobat may open a dialog box asking you if you want to load the update or perform some other task. Unfortunately, this dialog box will often open up behind all other open windows, so you’ll never see it. This has the effect of making Acrobat look like it’s just not opening or doing anything, when in fact it is waiting for you to tell it what to do. If this is what you’re seeing, try minimizing all your open windows to see if there’s a dialog box waiting for you in the background. This is more of a “if all else fails” solution, but I’ve seen it happen many times.
• Also, most people don't realize that Adobe Acrobat can open web-based PDFs in one of two modes. Most commonly Acrobat opens web-based documents in the browser mode—Acrobat is actually running from inside your internet browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, or whatever). Alternatively, it can also open documents in stand-alone mode where Adobe Acrobat opens a separate application to display the document. You can tell which mode is being used on your computer by looking at the icon in the upper-left hand corner of the window that is displaying (or trying to display) your document. If it's the same icon as your web browser, then it's opening in browser mode. If it's the curly-q triangle symbol that Adobe uses, then it's in stand-alone mode.
  The browser mode has been known to be problematic at times. Though most of the time it works just fine. If you're having problems opening your document. Try changing Acrobat to stand-alone mode. Open up Adobe Acrobat (from your Start Menu, Programs list most likely). From the Menu Bar at the top, choose Edit and then Preferences... In the menu to the left of the open window choose Internet. Uncheck the Display PDF in browser checkbox. Click OK and close Adobe Acrobat. Try to open your document again. This time you'll see Adobe Acrobat open as a separate application, and hopefully, your document with it.
• If none of these describes or solves your problem, then please take note of any error or warning messages you may be seeing and contact the library’s Systems Librarian for help.