Distance Education

If you are like most distance education students, you chose a distance education program for the convenience. Driving to Iowa City to use the library is not a convenient option. In the next couple of paragraphs, I’ll outline some strategies for getting books for your academic research.

Which book?
First, use the Libraries online catalog to find books on your subject or to find your specific title.

Getting a book from the University of Iowa Libraries
When you find a book you want, use the Interlibrary Loan & Article Delivery Request Form to request it. (Don’t let the name scare you – we use the system for books, too.)

The first time you log in to the system, you’ll be asked to create an account – a pretty straightforward process. If you are a distance education student, remember to choose the Distance Education option whenever it is available. This short video explains how in more detail.

To request a book…

1. Log into the system.
2. Choose the book request form from the list on the left.
3. Fill out as much information as you can – the form indicates what basic information is required, but the more information might help us find your book faster.
4. Submit your request.
5. We’ll ship the books to you, usually by UPS. You are responsible for sending the books back to us. Use this chart to find out how long you can keep books.

Getting books we don’t own
We can even get books for you from other libraries – although that is not always the best option for distance ed students. When you request a book, we’ll first check our collection for it. If we don’t have it, we’ll automatically request it for you from another library. That’s right – you just request what you want and we’ll get it for you whether we own it or not.

Of course, it takes longer for us to request a book from another library, have them send it to Iowa City and then have us turn around and send it on to you.

Finding a Book in your area
How can a distance ed student get a book from another library, then? This is one of the few times I’ll recommend your local public library. They also provide Interlibrary loan services and might be able to save time by getting the book more locally. Use the WorldCat system to see if the book is available in a library near you.

How do you get the books you need for your research. Tell us about it in the comments.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 11:34 am and is filed under Find Books, delivery, shipping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.