Did you know you can have documents delivered to your home or office?

The ISU Library has invested heavily in increasing the electronic availability of books, journals, and other information resources, primarily by adding subscriptions to a growing number of e-journals. Additionally, whenever a journal article is needed that is not available in the ISU Library (in paper or electronic format), the Interlibrary Loan Service is now able to deliver most of these articles electronically to the requestor's desktop. Despite these solid advances in convenient and fast document delivery, there are still many items in the ISU Library that are available only in paper. In the past, library users would have to come to the Library to read this material on site or make a photocopy to take with them. Now, even these items are available for electronic delivery via the Library's fee-based Document Delivery Service (DDS).

For a base fee of $5.00 per item, ISU Library staff will scan journal articles and other types of documents, and deliver the digital files via email to anyone with a valid ISUCard or ISU Library Visitor's card. If paper photocopies are preferred, these can also be produced and delivered via campus mail, Fedex, the U.S. Postal Service, or other delivery methods. Users lacking an ISUCard or Library Visitor's card can also request DDS service, but the base fee for non-ISU affiliated users is $12.00 per item. Requestors affiliated with Iowa State can pay conveniently by credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Discover), billing to a personal ISU account, or intramural. ISU-affiliated users can also have books checked out in their name and shipped to a specified address on-campus or off-campus. Requests can be placed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, via Document Delivery Service web form. For the $5.00 service fee, the DDS requester not only gains access to the well-honed bibliographic skills of ISU Library staff, they also get fast delivery/shipping of the requested material, normally within 24 hours.

The ISU Library's Document Delivery Service is a convenient, low-cost alternative for anyone who finds it difficult to visit the Library's facilities. Some users may even find the service more cost effective than hiring a research assistant, paying for gas, parking fees, or parking tickets. For further information, please contact Wayne Pedersen at wap5@iastate.edu or 515-294-0440.