When you initially identify an article as relevant to your research, typically the next step will be to review the abstract and skim the full text in order to include or exclude it from your project. This FAQ will help you to access the full text of articles either from Compass or from the library databases directly.

Compass Records

For items accessible via electronic resources—ranging from academic journals to newspapers and ebooks—you will see the Access Online box populate with the various vendors and database collections through which we have coverage for your item. Please note that it is not necessary to click on the “Sign in” button that appears in the yellow banner in order to access the full text of your article. Instead, direct your attention to the list of databases where your item is “Available Online.”

Be sure to click on a database link appropriate both to the date of your item’s publication and to your user group within the university, whether DU Main (), DU Law (), or the Iliff School of Theology (). In most cases, you will be transported to your article from the database vendor after logging in with your 87 number and MyDU password, and can download the full text of your article directly from the article’s landing page.

Note: Iliff Master’s students and Joint Doctoral Program (JDP) students exercising their Iliff-specific privileges use a different login protocol via their iliff.edu email credentials. Please direct any questions about this to the Iliff Library Support staff.

Library Databases

When performing searches from within a library database that you have identified as relevant to your discipline, you will see a mixture of search results with Full Text and some results with an Article Linker button. Although each database will look a little different, for those results advertising Full Text, you can typically access the full article by clicking on the title within a set of search results, or by clicking on a link for HTML full text or downloading the PDF version.
 

Where the full text of an article is not available within the database, you sometimes will need to use Article Linker to find your article. Article Linker performs several functions:

• It locates the full text of articles that might exist in a different database by rerouting you through Compass
• It allows you to efficiently complete an InterLibrary Loan (ILL) request for items we do not have full text access to through our databases

Clicking on the Article Linker icon should open a new tab or window showing where the item is indexed by Compass. If full text is available in another database, you will see the database listed in the Access Online box of the Compass record that appears.

If a direct link to the article isn’t possible, you can sometimes navigate to the article by searching for the journal in which your article was published within Compass or BrowZine.

If you were unable to find full text online, you can use the Compass record found by Article Linker to generate an InterLibrary Loan request for a digital copy of the article. You can do so by choosing the “Main Campus - Request for Interlibrary Loan” link found under “Additional services.”

Note: DU Law students should make use of the Law Library link within Compass, while Iliff Master's students should file ILL requests with Iliff's Taylor Library.
 

If University Libraries owns the item in print, we can scan a copy of the article for you and email it to you. If not, InterLibrary Loan will obtain a copy of the article from another library, and once we have received the document from a responding library (typically within 48-72 hours), a notice will be delivered to your DU.edu email inbox explaining how to retrieve the PDF full text from the InterLibrary Loan system.

Research Center

Feel like you don’t know where to begin your research, or need help with navigating the databases? Contact the Research Center in the Anderson Academic Commons by email, webchat, or phone, or visit us in person for expert research help seven days a week. One-on-one research consultations with a reference librarian are also available by appointment. Consultations can help you at any stage of the research process, from refining your topic, to finding books and articles, to how to use citation managers like Zotero.