What are my options for getting a book or journal that isn’t owned by the Medical Library?
Answer
There are several options for obtaining books, journals or journal articles not owned by the Alumni Medical Library:
- If you want to go to another Boston University library, you can use BU’s Library Catalog to determine if the title is owned by a BU library. You can access all BU libraries and borrow any materials that are available to circulate.
- If the title is not owned by BU, you can also check WorldCat to find another library where the book or journal may be held, and visit that library in person to access it. You may visit any of the Boston Library Consortium libraries with a BLC card and view or copy an article you need, or check out a circulating book (not all books are available for checkout). Access policies vary at academic libraries, so if you find the title in a library that is not a member of the BLC, contact that library first to ask about making arrangements to visit and view the material as a guest researcher.
- If no nearby libraries own the journal, or you are not able to travel to them, another option is to order a book or article via interlibrary loan. Submit your ILL request using the Order Articles and Books form and we will try to find a library that owns the item and have it sent to the Medical Library for you.