Why do I need a username and password to use Harvard University Library Interlibrary Loan?

Your username and password allows us to give you secure access to information about your interlibrary loan requests. We can also enable you to edit your personal information such as your address or phone number.

Your username can be anything you like, such as your name, abbreviations, or an alphanumeric code. Your password also can be anything you like. We recommend that you follow good security practice and choose a password that is different from those you use to access other systems. However, no one but you will know your password, not even the library staff. The password you set is stored in an encrypted file.

Is security a problem if I use a public workstation?

Yes. Web browsers cache information and create a history file on the local workstation. This allows a subsequent user of the workstation to access the system under your name using the browser's Back button to recall a page from the cache, or by finding a page with your personal information in the browser's history file. If you are concerned about the security of your interlibrary loan requests, you can take the following steps:

• Access Harvard University Library Interlibrary Loan only from your personal computer or an otherwise secure workstation.
• Access Harvard University Library Interlibrary Loan from a public workstation in a library. These computers are supervised by the library staff.
• When using a public access workstation:
  1. Delete from the history file those pages that contain your personal information.
  2. Exit from the Web browser before you leave the workstation. This prevents the Back button from accessing the pages you were using.

Why don't I see all my older requests when I look at my request history?

From time to time we purge older records from Harvard University Library Interlibrary Loan. Our policy is to keep requests online for several years order to comply with record keeping requirements of the copyright law.

What is electronic delivery?

Many libraries ship photocopies of articles to us in electronic format. We are able to offer you the option of electronic delivery of these articles in PDF format (Adobe's Portable Document Format).