There are several ways you may locate and borrow books if you live outside Ohio.  Your local public library is a good starting point.  Many college and university libraries allow local residents to borrow books for a minimal fee. 

WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. You may search all US libraries using WorldCat.  If you enter your zip code, it will display holdings within a designated radius of your location.

Databases frequently provide full-text for many articles but in some cases the full text is not available. 

In order to get an article that is not available online in full text you can request the article by submitting an Interlibrary Loan Article Request Form.   A link to the form is frequently included beneath the citation in the list of article results. A link to the form can also be found on the library website under Quick Links.

This searches across many scholarly Internet sources, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles.  Google Scholar is especially useful for tracking down or verifying difficult or partial citations. 

Scholarly articles found on Google, frequently require that you pay a fee to access the full text of the article.  However, because of  your affiliation with AU and OhioLINK, Google Scholar can directly link you to quality resources at no charge. When on campus your Google Scholar search results will immediately indicate if the items are available through OhioLINK.

To show links to free OhioLINK Resources from off-campus, you will need to change Google Preferences on your computer.

• On the Google Scholar page, click "Scholar Preferences."  (The link is to the right of the search box.)
• In the "Library Links" box, type in "Ohiolink" and click "Find Library."
• Put check marks in the boxes that appear:

OhioLINK- Find it with OLinks

Open WorldCat - Library Search

• Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Save Preferences."
• You may now start searching for articles in Google Scholar. If an article is available full-text through one of our subscription databases, you will see a link that says "Full-Text from OhioLINK OLinks"

From any EBSCO database such as Criminal Justice Abstracts  or Academic Search Complete, you may set up a free account.

 To set up a free account with EBSCO, click on Sign In on the top tool bar of any EBSCO database and follow the easy steps.  

 With an EBSCO account you may:

• Save your research in folders
• Share your folders with others or access them from other locations
• Save and retrieve your search history
• Create email alerts and/or RSS feeds to let you knowwhen new articles about your topic are published
• Access to your saved from other locations or other EBSCO databases.

To contact the AU Information Techology Dept. with computer, WebAdvisor access, ID number or email issues:

Phone: (419) 289-5405

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