On our page, Great resources for attorneys at The National Library of Medicine, we pointed out that a search of the MEDLINE® database at PubMed provides citations to articles in the medical journal literature with an ever increasing number of links to full-text sources available electronically on the World Wide Web. Some of these full-text articles are actually free at their publishers' Websites, especially if they are older sources, a few are pay-per-view, but electronic access to most articles requires a subscription to the journal. So how might you otherwise obtain that article that you want?

Here are some suggestions:

It is a little known fact that most hospitals have medical libraries open to the public. Even the smallest of these have the mainstream medical journals, including JAMA, The New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, Lancet, etc., and a photocopy machine. You're one of the lucky ones if you happen to be located near a comprehensive academic medical library with friendly librarians on staff. If such is your good fortune, read no further.

If you don't have a good medical library nearby, however, there are some good document delivery services that can get you that important article pronto. Following is a list of these. Their prices per article and delivery charges are comparable and reasonable - $20 to $30 per article, although a few publishers' hefty copyright fees can double that cost. You might want to put a cap on the amount that you are willing to pay. Delivery options include PDF files transmitted right to your desktop, fax, overnight courier, and snail mail. All offer rush service. Each company requires a brief account setup by telephone or on the World Wide Web, and most accept payment by check, credit card or deposit account. Good luck!

Document Delivery Services
Courtesy of MedMatters

CISTI (Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information)
Ottawa, Canada
Web: http://www.nrc.ca/cisti/docdel/docdel.html
Voice: (800) 668-1222 or (613) 998-8544
Fax: (613) 993-7619
E-mail: info.cisti@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

Information Express
Menlo Park, CA
Web: http://www.ieonline.com
Voice: (650) 812-3588
Fax: (650) 812-3573
E-mail: service@ieonline.com

Infotrieve
Los Angeles, CA
Web: http://www.infotrieve.com
Voice: (800) 422-4633 or (310) 445-3001 ext. 0
Fax: (310) 445-3003
E-mail: service@infotrieve.com

Ingenta
Oxford, UK
Bath, UK
Providence, RI
Cambridge, MA
Web: http://www.ingentaconnect.com
Voice: (401) 331-2014
Fax: (401) 331-2015
*Entirely Web-based, with no ordering by telephone or e-mail.

Instant Information Systems
Germantown, MD
Web: http://www.docdel.com
Voice: (301) 540-4864
Fax: (301) 540-1413
E-mail: IIS@docdel.com

MedMatters™
Expert Medical Literature Research for Attorneys
358 Atkins Avenue
Lancaster, PA 17603-4938
Voice: (717) 397-6701
Fax: (717) 397-0293
E-mail: patmill@medmatters.net