Skip to Main Content

Duke LifePoint Services: Overview of Services

Contact Information


     Louis Wiethe, ILL/DocDel Manager

     919-660-1138

     MCLDD@mc.duke.edu

Article Delivery Service

Duke Medical Center Library & Archives is working with your Duke LifePoint Hospital to provide interlibrary loans of journal articles requested by your hospital physicians and staff.

What is the service?

The Library will scan copies of journal articles available in the Duke University collections and deliver the scanned copies to your hospital by email. We will not obtain copies of articles from non-Duke libraries.

Articles are usually delivered within 24 to 72 hours, Monday through Friday.

Books, audiovisuals, or other types of materials are not part of this service.

Making a request

You will use an online system for requesting the articles. This Web-based system is called ILLiad and is provided by the Duke Medical Center Library. This guide includes instructions & tips (see other tabs) for using the ILLiad system, which we use to accept and process your requests. You can also login and check on the status of your requests.   

Is there a cost for this service?

The Duke Medical Center Library will be charging $8 per request, which is the standard rate for NC hospitals.

There is an extra $5 charge for rush requests.

All invoices will be sent to a central Duke LifePoint office for payment. 

How many articles can I request?

While there is no limit on the number of articles you can request from our Library, the US Copyright Law has developed guidelines (see the CONTU link below) for how many articles can be requested from current issues of the same journal. According to these guidelines each calendar year your hospital can request up to 5 articles from the same journal title, published over the last five years. So if you have 6 requests for articles from JAMA from the current five years, you can only request 5 of them during one year without being liable for copyright fees. Under these guidelines, if you exceed this limit your institution is expected either to purchase the journal for future use or pay additional copyright/royalty fees which can cost up to $200, with an average of about $40.

If the articles were published 6 years ago or earlier, there are no limits on how many you can get from the same journal.

Also under the US Copyright Law, our Library may not copy an entire journal issue or supplement. We will let you know when  requests cannot be filled.

Keeping track of copyright is YOUR obligation. But, we can help. Contact us anytime for an explanation of what triggers copyright liabilities or for a list of journal titles that count toward your total for the calendar year.

Other resources?

The Medical Center Library has developed a number of tutorials, tip sheets and a guide for free medical resources which are freely available to everyone. Please see the Free Resources tab or visit our Guides (link below)