The Skyline College library is offering a new service for students to obtain articles from newspapers and magazines off the Internet.

Students can now request articles from any source at any institution throughout the country at the library through a new feature called the Article Delivery Service.

Skyline College Librarian Eric Brenner said this new service will bring a broader spectrum of research possibilities to students.

“Students are able to access full-length articles through our website database,” Brenner said. “However, there are articles which we don’t have the full content to. With this new service available, they (students) can request these summarized articles.”

When researching for references through the library’s website, students must enter the topic of information they seek under the “find articles” section which will give them access to a plethora of writings. From there, if a student can retrieve only a summary of an article, they can use the new service.

First a request form must be filled out online. The request must include the name of the publication, the date it was published, the title and the page number.

After filling out the request form, the library will notify the student that the order has been put into their system. When the piece of writing is delivered, the library will send it electronically via e-mail to the student. If the library did not receive the writing electronically, they will photocopy it and send an email to the student letting them know they can pick up a photocopy in person.

The delivery can take anywhere from a day up to a week.

According to Brenner, Article Delivery Service gives students access to many more full-length articles which the library may not have on hand or in their database.

“This service opens up more opportunities for research,” Brenner said. “It does so without getting rid of our library resources, such as the periodicals.

“Working from home is a more plausible idea now because so much more research can be done online,” Brenner said.

This new feature will not necessarily speed up the research process, but will make researching easier for students with Internet access.

Skyline Student Franco Ortiz said he looks forward to using this system.

“It’ll be nice to do this kind of research from home,” Ortiz said. “So many times I have come across a half article and was frustrated. Now I can get an article in its entirety.”