Document delivery services sell you copies of articles, sections of books and other materials for a fee.
Traditionally, document delivery services work out of a particular library. Three excellent traditional services are NYPL Premium Services (212-592-7200), which works out of the New York Public Library, British Library Direct, which works out of the British Library, and the Michigan Information Transfer Source or "MITS," which works out of the University of Michigan library system (734-763-5060).
You'll find lists of more document delivery services posted on Jean Shipman's Document Delivery Suppliers page.
You can also order copies of articles from purely online document delivery services, which blur the line between the traditional services and electronic databases. Ingenta is a good general online document delivery service. OCLC's Electronic Collections Online specializes in the document delivery of articles from academic journals.
Legal Materials: Most law school and bar association libraries have document delivery services. Some good services include:
- Boalt Express (from the U. Cal. Berkley Library), 510-642-0950
- Columbia University Law School, 212-854-7851 for subscribers, others call 800-332-4529;
- Information Express (from Stanford U.), 415-812-3588
- Jenkins Memorial Library, 215-574-7909
- MITS (from U. of Michigan), 734-763-5060
- The New York County Lawyers' Association library, 212-267-6646, x205 or x206
- The New York University Law Library, 212-998-6302
- The Social Law Library, 888-523-0114
- The University of Connecticut law library 230-241-7685
To find services at libraries not listed here, just call the library. Whoever answers the main number can probably point you in the right direction.
Other specialties: There are document delivery services specializing in materials from specific states and specific subjects. I've listed the ones I know in the entries for the individual states (e.g., "California") and subjects (e.g., "Medical Materials" or "Science and Engineering").
To find out about other document delivery services, including specialty and foreign services, and to find out more about document delivery services, go to the docdel.com web site sponsored by Instant Information Systems.
Note: For specific information about getting news articles, search "News" as a Subject.