Ordering items if you are not registered
If you are an occasional user or order small quantities of items, we recommend using one of our credit/ debit card based ordering facilities.
- British Library Direct – search a 5 year archive of 20,000 of our most popular journals and order items directly with a credit/ debit card.
- British Library Direct order form – if you know which article you need, submit the details to this online order form and pay for it directly with a debit/ credit card.
Ordering items if you are a registered customer
If you hold an account with us, you can order items in the following ways:
- ARTWeb - If you are sending an order for one article, complete this simple online form and click on the submit button. Detailed on-screen help is available at each stage www.bl.uk/artweb.
- ARTEmail - is an email-based ordering system. You can send as many requests as you like in one file, but the list must be formatted correctly (see ‘Creating and Sending your order file’ below) artemail@art.bl.uk.
- ARTTel is an online, interactive system that gives you instant access to information about your requests and the facility to cancel orders if you change your mind within 15 minutes of submitting a file. You can send as many requests as you like in one file, but the list must be formatted correctly (see ‘Creating and Sending your order file’ below). Connect to ARTTel at telnet://arttel.bl.uk. You will need your Customer Code and Password to log on to ARTTel.
Creating and sending your order file
For both ARTEmail and ARTTel, we recommend that you prepare your file offline, using a text editor or word processing software, e.g. Notepad.
You must save the file in ASCII text format, to ensure that our system will accept it. If you use Windows®, specify the file type as ‘Text File (*.TXT)’
in the ‘Save File as Type’ box. Once you are happy with the file, copy it to your PC’s clipboard, then:
- ARTEmail: Paste the file (don’t attach it) into the body of your e-mail message and send it as a plain text e-mail to artemail@art.bl.uk.
- ARTTel: Log on to ARTTel, use the SEND command and paste the file into your session.
ARTEmail and ARTTel will then either confirm that your file has been accepted, or give an Error Code explaining why it has been rejected.
For more information on formatting your order correctly download our ARTguide.
Ordering items on behalf of other users
Our latest subscription service British Library Direct Plus allows you to search content from British Library, Google Scholar and Pubmed Central from one easy-to-use interface. It also offers a suite of advance management tools that give administrators the power to control how the service is used. You can set up daily, weekly or monthly alerts, save references to a Marked List, export to reference management tools, charged full text purchases to a British Library account or a credit card and set the monthly spending budgets of end users. For more information or a trial, please e-mail marketing@bl.uk.
