Document Delivery Services
If you are not affiliated with UT-Austin (faculty, staff, or currently enrolled student), skip to the Non-UT section for information about obtaining materials from our collections.
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- If you need an article from a journal volume held in the Library Storage Facility, you can request a free scanned PDF via Interlibrary Services. Turnaround time is 2-3 business days.
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- If the item you need is not available at UT, submit a request via the Interlibrary Services site. Be sure to provide as complete a citation as possible, a realistic deadline, and your email address. Turnaround time depends on the type of material requested: digital copies can be obtained in as little as a day or two; loans of books from other libraries generally take 2 weeks or more. Most copies can be picked up electronically on the ILS site. Books may be picked up and returned at PCL. There is currently no charge to UT patrons for this service.
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- Library patrons have the option of requesting delivery of documents not owned by the Libraries through the Document Detective Service of Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS DDS). This option is recommended particularly for obscure chemical journal articles (especially Russian and East European), and foreign chemical patent documents, which are not easily obtained via Interlibrary Service. CAS can provide most documents indexed in Chemical Abstracts since around 1980, and since 1970 for most patents and Russian-language articles. Normal turnaround time is 5-10 days, via U.S. mail. Rush and fax options are available.
Fill out a special request form at the Chemistry Library, including the CA abstract number, and provide either a UT IDT account number or a check. The base cost is $13 per document; patents are $10; expedited delivery costs extra. Documents can be picked up at the Chemistry Library.
Non-UT persons or companies can order documents directly from CAS DDS. Go to their web page for details.
Electronic Journal Sites 
- Some publishers and web sites allow users to make a credit card purchase of single articles in electronic format. The price can be quite high, usually $30 or more, but it's immediate. You must pay all charges incurred. Make sure that UT does not already have the journal available (online or in print) at no charge!
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- The Engineering Library has some technical reports on microfiche, mainly from NASA. Otherwise, you must order directly from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS, a government-affiliated clearinghouse). This is often the only way to obtain federal agency reports such as DOE, AEC, NRC, DOD, EPA, etc., and general reports with prefixes like PB, AD, etc. You need a report number to order. You must pay all charges directly to NTIS. See the Gray Literature page for more information on technical reports.
Dissertations 
- Search ProQuest Digital Dissertations & Theses (formerly Dissertation Abstracts) to identify North American PhD dissertations back to 1865. (After 2000 the advent of electronic dissertations (ETDs) has made ProQuest's database less complete than it used to be.) PDF copies of many U.S. dissertations since around 1997 are available to UT-affiliated users at no charge. Other dissertations can sometimes be borrowed in hardcopy from other libraries via Interlibrary Service, but many schools do not loan them. You can order a printed copy of a dissertation directly from ProQuest. Prices vary according to format. Foreign dissertations and master's theses are more difficult to obtain.
Patents
- Many U.S. and foreign patent documents are available free from patent sites. Otherwise, foreign chemical patents after 1970 are best obtained from CAS Document Detective Service.
Document Delivery Services for Non-UT Customers
InterLibrary Service and CAS DDS are available only to current UT students, faculty, and staff.
The Chemistry Library does not directly supply copies, faxes, or loans to persons not affiliated with UT-Austin, or to companies. Please consult with the interlibrary loan or document delivery office at your own library for information on requesting items from other libraries.
Individuals interested in obtaining materials directly from the Libraries should contact the Interlibrary Service Document Express service. Corporate customers and organizations should contact the Document Sharing service.
