From Library to Desktop

The UConn Libraries now offer scanning on demand of journals held in Babbidge Library.

<p>Student employee Stephen Steben creates a pdf version of a journal to be sent to a patron. Photo provided by Jean Cardinale Nelson</p>
Student employee Stephen Steben creates a pdf version of a journal article to be sent to a patron. Photo provided by UConn Libraries

A new service is available to faculty, staff, and students that offers scanning on demand of journals held in the Homer Babbidge Library. The service is provided by the UConn Libraries’ Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan, and is free, quick, and easy.

Library officials say their collections are changing every day, as more items are available digitally and accessible in a variety of ways: from PC, to laptop, to mobile device. One way of meeting the ever-changing expectations of the university community is to make more of the Libraries’ traditional print collection available electronically.

The Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan service provides materials to support research and teaching. In the past 10 years, document delivery has evolved from physical pickup of photocopied materials to desktop delivery of PDF files.

Electronically delivered materials are often received the same day they are requested. For a time, this created an unusual situation, in that materials held at institutions on the other side of the country could often be more quickly and easily obtained than items held by UConn. The new scanning-on-demand service is intended to make access to locally held materials just as quick and easy.

The service, which provides for in-house scanning of journals held in Homer Babbidge Library, will be available to UConn faculty, staff, and currently enrolled students. The service is free, and the goal during the academic semester is to accomplish a 48-hour turnaround time, from request to delivery.

How does it work? After locating a required article through a database search, the user should choose UConn Links, as before. If the Library is unable to provide immediate online full-text access, the user may request the article via UConn Links and the interlibrary loan interface ILLiad. When the requested article becomes available, e-mail notification will be sent and the user can retrieve the article in PDF form. The article will remain accessible for 30 days.

Last year, DD/ILL scanned approximately 6,000 Babbidge-owned materials for patrons at UConn’s regional campuses, and close to 8,000 items for other institutions. The service is now available to the university community in Storrs.