Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions by Publishers
Frequently Asked Questions
Electronic Delivery and Immediate Download questions
Do I need special software for electronic delivery or
immediate downloads?
Immediate downloads and electronic delivery from British Library
Direct use a technology called Secure Electronic Delivery (SED),
which makes use of encrypted PDF files.
All British Library Direct customers need to download and correctly install a
new software application
Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) in order to view documents through our
SED service. ADE can be downloaded now, for free, from the
Adobe website.
If you are currently using Adobe Reader version 6, 7 or 8, you need to
upgrade to Adobe Digital Editions in order to view SED documents ordered via
British Library Direct.
Once you have downloaded Adobe Digital Editions, please test that
you can download an SED document before you place a live order. You
can do this by viewing here.
If Digital Editions opens and the test document appears, the software
is correctly installed and you can begin to order SED documents.
You must have downloaded, installed and activated the Digital
Rights Management function before ordering your first item for
secure electronic delivery or Immediate download.
More information about Secure
Electronic Delivery and Adobe Digital Editions
How can I test to
make sure I have Adobe Digital Editions correctly set up?
Before you order a document with electronic delivery or an
immediate download, please follow the link below to check whether
or not your Adobe Digital Editions is correctly set up.
Electronic
Delivery Test Document
If you are able to open and print the above document, your software
is working correctly and you can safely order electronic delivery.
If you could not open the document, please
visit our Secure Electronic Delivery pages to find out more about how to set up
your Adobe Digital Editions software.
How do I receive my electronic document?
If you have asked for an immediate download, you will find a link
to your document in your list of Confirmed Orders, which you
find by clicking on Orders anywhere in British Library
Direct after logging in. Follow this link and your document will
download to your computer. Note that you are only allowed to
access the document from our secure server once. So do not click
on the link if you don't intend to download the document.
If you ask for standard, 24-hour or 2-hour electronic delivery,
we send you an email message to tell you that it is available.
This will have your order/request number in the header subject
line and will contain the hyperlink(s) to your document(s).
Click on the link while your computer is connected to the Internet
and you can download the document. Note that you are only allowed
to access the document from our secure server once. So do not
click on the link if you don't intend to download the document.
I have downloaded my electronic document but I cannot
find it on my computer
All Adobe Digital Editions files are stored in an area called 'Library'. To
retrieve them, go to File then Open, select
Library and you will see the saved items.
If your article was delivered in the past and you have an edition of
Adobe Reader 6 (e.g. 6.0 or 6.0.1), the default storage area for
electronic files is a folder called 'My Bookshelf'. To retrieve them,
go to File then Open, select My Bookshelf
and you will see all the saved items.
If your article was delivered in the past and you have a version of Adobe
Reader 7, the files are stored in an area called 'My Digital Editions'.
To retrieve them, go to File, then Digital Editions
and you will see the saved items.
Can I print or make further copies of my electronic document?
Because of copyright legislation, you may print only one paper
copy of your electronic document, from which you may not make
any further copies. You may not make further electronic copies
or convert the file into any other format. You may not cut and
paste or otherwise alter the text
How long can I keep my electronic document?
Most electronic documents can be stored for up to three years, if a
copyright fee has been paid, but we recommend you take your print
out as soon as it's convenient.
There was a problem during my download or printout, what
should I do?
If, for any reason, you cannot download or print out your document,
contact the British Library Direct Helpdesk for advice.
Email: bldirect-help@bl.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1937 546060
British Library
Direct's database
How big is the British Library Direct database and how
do you decide what goes into it?
The database contains roughly 9 million records. It holds article-level
data from the 20,000 most popular journal titles collected by the
British Library.
The list of journals catalogued on the database is continuously
reviewed and new journal titles are added every month, while some
less popular titles will drop out.
How far back does the database go and how often is it
updated?
The database covers the last 5 years and it is updated almost every
weekday. Sometimes you will come across records that are more than
5 years old, this is because the date we count is the date that
the record was entered on the database, rather than the date of
publication. Usually the two dates are very close, but sometimes
there can be a longer gap, if we have back-catalogued a title,
for example.
Why do you not have abstracts available for every record?
We only hold an abstract of an article when one was published in
the original journal issue.
Why can I download some articles immediately and not others?
The option of Immediate Download is only available for documents
within journal titles that are held by the British Library in
electronic format (i.e. 'born digital'). Because they are stored
electronically, they are available for you as soon as your payment
has been processed.
If the journal title is not stored digitally, but is instead held
as a paper copy, a member of staff has to scan your article and
send it to you.
The Registration and Login process
Do I have to register to use British Library Direct?
No. You can search the British Library Direct database without
having to register. You do, however, need to register if you
want to order a copy of a document.
What do I do if I forget my password?
If you forget your password, please email the British Library Direct
Helpdesk and tell us the email address you registered with. We
will then send a message to the registered email address with
a reminder of the password.
bldirect-help@bl.uk
What to do if there are delivery or processing
problems
General Helpdesk contact details
Please contact the British Library Direct Helpdesk if you have
problems with your order or delivery.
bldirect-help@bl.uk
What do I do if I receive the wrong item or an incomplete
copy?
Please contact the British Library Direct Helpdesk if you have
problems with your order or delivery.
bldirect-help@bl.uk
Can I cancel orders sent through British Library Direct?
No. Once you have been through Checkout and confirmed your order, you cannot cancel your request, so be sure to check your list thoroughly before going to the Checkout.
What is the difference between
British Library Direct and Articles Direct?
British Library Direct gives you five years of
contents page information from 20,000 of the world's most popular
research journals to search. You can then order copies of any article
you find on the database. Many of the articles recorded are available
as Immediate downloads and many more have abstract information
attached. You can only order copies of articles that are recorded
on the British Library Direct database.
The Blank Order Form, otherwise known as Articles
Direct, is a template order form that you can use to order copies
of articles that are not recorded on the British Library Direct
database but for which you have bibliographic data, e.g. if the
document was published more than 5 years ago. You can order one
item at a time, and have your documents supplied by mail, electronic
delivery, fax or Ariel.
What is the difference between
British Library Direct and Inside or Zetoc?
British Library Inside is a complete integrated
current awareness and document supply package. Inside is a great
help for anyone running a busy Information Centre, and allows
you to manage many accounts, with total control of the budgets
and access level, through a simple supervisor function. Inside's
database holds detailed records of over 23 million items, roughly
three times what is available through British Library Direct,
including journal articles back to 1993 and over a decade of
conference papers. Inside also lets you set up email alerts
telling you when the latest issues of your favourite journals
arrive at the British Library, or a regular digest of articles
recently catalogued within specific subject fields. You can
also import to Inside details of your own library's holdings,
so you don't order externally unnecessarily.
Find out more about what Inside
can do for you and current subscription prices.
Zetoc is a search and ordering system aimed
specifically at end users in UK Higher Education, plus the National
Health Service in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Access
is only available to anyone working or studying within these areas.
Zetoc users can search records of journal articles from the Inside
database back to 1993 and can set up journal title, subject and
author alerts. Electronic delivery is only available as email attachments
from 800 Kluwer and Karger journals, unlike Inside and British
Library Direct, which offer electronic delivery for every item
on the database. End users ordering copies direct through Zetoc
must pay a copyright fee on each document, but can forward the
order to their intermediary (their hospital or college library)
to submit a Library Privilege order.
Find out more
about Zetoc.
How secure is the payment process?
Are my credit card details safe?
Yes. All credit card authorisation is carried out by NetBanx, a
leading secure on-line payment solution for credit, debit and
charge cards. NetBanx carries out all card authorisation and
will debit your account. NetBanx uses SSL technology with 128
bit encryption on their secure server, so you can have complete
confidence in the security of the transaction. The British Library
does not receive your credit card details when you order through
British Library Direct.
What do I do if I have a question about my bill?
Please contact the British Library Direct Helpdesk if you have
problems with charges or payment.
bldirect-help@bl.uk
What is the British Library's privacy policy?
You can read the British Library's privacy policy here.
If you tick the box at the top of the Additional Information
section of the registration form, the British Library may use
your registration details to assess what British Library products
and services may be of interest to you and to personalise our
service and marketing. We will never pass your registration
details to any third parties.
You have the right to ask us at any time not to contact you by
way of direct marketing.
marketing@bl.uk
Why do I have to pay a copyright
fee?
Copyright fees are a standard method of recompensing the creator,
and/or the investor in creativity, of a published work when only
purchasing a copy of a paper or article via a supplier rather than
a complete original from the publisher. The level of a copyright
fee is set by the publisher or their agent and distributed to rightsholders
worldwide on behalf of the British Library by the Copyright Licensing
Agency Ltd.
You should note that paying a copyright fee does not allow
you to make further copies from the document without permission
or an appropriate licence.
More
information about copyright and document supply.
I have a password for another
British Library service, can I use it for British Library
Direct?
No, you need to register specifically for British Library Direct
to order documents.
Customers with billing or deposit accounts with the British
Library Document Supply service, for example, are free to use
British Library Direct to search the database for relevant articles.
At present, however, you cannot, use these accounts to pay for
orders placed through British Library Direct. If you have a
British Library account and do not wish to pay by credit card,
you will need to copy the bibliographic data to your normal
ordering route.
Remember, however, that all items ordered through British Library
Direct are Copyright Fee Paid. You cannot use a Library Privilege
ordering option through British Library Direct.
The British Library is licensed to supply copies from a journal in two different ways.
Please contact the British Library Copyright Office (copyright@bl.uk) who will be
happy to check for you.
Yes, the CLA are members of the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations
(IFRRO) whose purpose is to facilitate, on an international basis, the collective management of
reproduction and other rights relevant to copyrighted works through the co-operation of national
Reproduction Rights Organisations (RROs). The CLA has bilateral agreements with many other RROs.
Yes, the CLA informs the British Library what the copyright
fees are for the items we are licensed to include as part of our document supply service. Please
contact the CLA if you wish to alter this fee. Their contact details are:
Copyright fees collected by the British Library are forwarded to the CLA for distribution to the appropriate
rightsholders or publishers
