Article delivery service impresses UW researchers

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.