Lesson 3: Requesting a Fax through an ArticleFirst Search

Monday, November 18

Introduction

Well, here we are: your most important exercise to date. What we need to do in Lesson 3 is get you to request an article via the FirstSearch form. This will help Neta Cox work out the arrangements with each of you ahead of time for faxing articles from the Interlibrary Loan Office of OU Libraries. If you remember, we are waiting for a soon-to-be-released product that will allow OU Libraries to send articles to you as email attachments. But you have to be able to send requests for, and receive, research articles in the meantime, so faxing is it for the moment.

Database Searching, Articles, ILL Forms, Faxing

There is, I know, some confusion over the articulation of these four elements into the document delivery system we have put together for you. Let me explain how we have fashioned a system for you.

1. Database Searching -- Right now, I am having you investigate one periodical indexing database called ArticleFirst to work on effective database searching skills. You will also work through this particular database for purposes of learning one method of document delivery. The primary purpose of ArticleFirst is NOT yet document delivery: it is allowing you to identify what exists in the scholarly journal literature that you may wish to locate and read. The OCLC FirstSearch service however, makes ArticleFirst available through an online system that also happens to give users options of asking for the document itself to be delivered to them-sometimes for a stiff fee, and sometimes subsidized by a local library (as in your case: OU Libraries).
2. Articles - Don't get in the habit of thinking that it is necessarily the case that a particular database indexing service you are searching also has the documents (articles) you are identifying. In fact, that is still more unusual than typical. It is more likely to be the case that once you search a database and find information you would like to have a copy of, a wholly different set of suppliers and/or libraries needs to be approached to get it in your hands. Services like FirstSearch simply work out those associations for you before time and make them available to you seamlessly through a variety of online request forms. In the service we have put together for you, OU Libraries looks first in its own collection for the article you requested. If it doesn't find it there, it actually places a request with another library to copy and send the article to OU Libraries, where it is then faxed to you.
3. ILL Forms - Before long, you will have had two different Interlibrary Loan (ILL) request f