Librarians are available to help!
Librarians are available to help you with your research.
If you would like to get in touch with Joseph Roberts, the librarian who created this research guide and the video tutorial for your class, he is generally available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. You can contact him at jmroberts@bsu.edu.
Help is also available through the University Libraries' Ask a Librarian page via text message, chat, email, and phone. You can also visit the Library Information Desk in person on Bracken Library's first floor.
Searching for a specific article
In the course of your research you might see an article mentioned somewhere and wonder if it is available at the University Libraries. The fastest way to determine whether a specific article is available in our collections is to search for it in OneSearch using its title in quotation marks and the last names of one or more of its authors. For example:
If the article appears in your OneSearch results and is accompanied by a "full text online" link, you can click the link to access the article. If the article does not appear in your OneSearch results or if it appears but is accompanied by a "citation online" link, the full text might not be available at Ball State. If it is not, you may request it through interlibrary loan. See the "Find It @ BALL STATE, ILLiad, and interlibrary loan" box below for more information.
You can also check Social Sciences Citation Index if you would like to see if the article is indexed there with information about its impact. Search for the article using one of the author's last names and the article's title. Type them into separate boxes on the basic search page, changing the pull-down menus to reflect which box contains the name and which contains the title. For example:
Find It @ Ball State, ILLiad, and interlibrary loan
When searching for articles you will sometimes encounter the Find It @ BALL STATE button in lieu of a link to full text. It looks like this:
The Find It @ BALL STATE button signifies that the full text of an article is not available in the database you're searching. There are three possibilities for obtaining the full text:
- It is possible that the full text is available in a different database, and you can quickly link to it.
- It is possible that the full text is not in any of University Libraries' databases but it is available in print and a PDF can be made for you.
- It is possible that the full text is not available in any format at University Libraries, but you could request and receive it as a PDF, though it might take a few days.
The first step is always clicking the Find It @ BALL STATE button. A new page will open in your browser.
If the full text is available in a different database, that database's name will appear near the middle of the page under a "View Online" heading, like this:
Click the name of the database. In most cases you will be taken to the article's abstract, which will be accompanied by a link to the full text.
If the articles is not available electronically at University Libraries you will see a link that says, "Request the item with Interlibrary Loan / ILLiad." The link looks like this:
In either case you can click the link to request an electronic copy of the article.
ILLiad is University Libraries' online interface for interlibrary loan and document delivery. Interlibrary loan is a free service that allows you to obtain items from other libraries. Document delivery is a free service that allows you to obtain electronic reproductions of articles and book chapters available in print at Ball State.
When you click the link you will be prompted to sign in with your Ball State username and password. If you've used ILLiad before, you will be prompted to complete a request for the article. If you have not used ILLiad before, you will be prompted to complete a one-time registration form; complete the registration, sign out of ILLiad, then click the "Request the item" link again. The request form will then appear.
When the article has been delivered you will receive and email alert and instructions for accessing the PDF.
In practice it might take only a few business days to obtain an article through ILLiad, but to be safe it is better to place your requests a week before you need them.
For more information about interlibrary loan and document delivery, see the Interlibrary Loan FAQ.