The Himmelfarb Library search box includes content ranging from books and book chapters, to dissertations, scientific reports, newspaper articles, and journals. If you’re looking for journal literature specifically, there are several methods you can use.
The first method is to use the Articles search scope. This will automatically limit all search retrieval to just article content. To activate this scope, click the down arrow next to the microphone icon to see all the search scope options and select Articles:
Articles scope includes articles from a variety of journal, magazine, and newspaper sources.You may need to use further limits, including selecting particular content types or limiting to peer review journals with the Availability filter on the left side of results.
These same limits can be used if you start in the default search scope and later want to limit your retrieval to a particular content type.
If you’re looking for content from a particular journal, use the Journal Search option. You can then search either the journal title or ISSN if you have it and can click through to the journal contents from the retrieved record.
To get to full-text of a retrieved article, use the Available Online link that appears in brief results or click the Download PDF link if present.
To see all supplier options for getting to full-text, click the article title in brief results to open the full record, then see the View Online area to click through to full-text from a particular supplier.
If there are no full-text options, use the Documents2Go link under How to Get It to order the article via interlibrary loan. You can login to Documents2Go with your GW NetID username and password.
A scanned or electronic version of the document will be sent to you. It may take several days to a week to process.
If you need assistance with searching the library search box or other databases, contact reference staff via Himmelfarb Library chat. For assistance with document delivery services, contact mlbdoc@gwu.edu.
The Himmelfarb Search box is front and center on the Library’s home page, beckoning users to search here! Have you wondered what it is you’re actually searching when you use the Search Box? Or how you can get the most out of it? Here’s some answers and tips.
What Am I Searching?
The Himmelfarb Search Box is a comprehensive discovery tool for the library’s resources. It includes most of the library’s subscription content (journals and articles and online books) as well as records for the library’s physical collections (print books and journals, equipment, and physical media like DVDs).
But that’s not all. By switching the selection with the down arrow on the right side of the search box, you can change what you’re searching to just article content, just online content, or you can select to search the contents of all the libraries in the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC). Select Articles + GW & Consortium Catalog to include books and media at the other WRLC libraries, like Georgetown, American, and Howard.
How Do I Improve My Search Results?
The Search Box includes a lot of content. It uses relevancy ranking, like Google, to try to bring the best search results to the top of the results page. But sometimes it needs a little help and guidance. You can help narrow results to the most relevant by using the Refine Results options on the left side of the search results page.
You can narrow the date range of results, look for results using a particular subject heading, or look for things in a particular collection (for example, select CINAHL Complete to narrow to nursing-focused results), or select books or dissertations or Newspaper articles with Content Type.
Other tips for improving results is to use advanced search to search for multiple concepts at once or search a specific field like title or author. Click on Advanced Search next to the Search Box.
Or use the Journal search option on the top menu if searching for a specific journal title.
I Found What I Want, Now How Do I Get It?
In the results view, anything that has a green Available Online link has full-text available by clicking on the link or clicking the title to see the full record and selecting a specific online source in View Online. For many article results, you may also see a Download PDF link that allows you to directly download a PDF. For the most efficient linking to online content, see our Finding Full-Text Content Made Easy! tips.
For items like physical books, you can check the status of items on the shelves at Himmelfarb by looking at the How to Get It section of the full record displayed when you click the title in the results. If you can’t physically come into the library to get the item, you can use our courtyard pickup and delivery services. If the book you want is at Gelman or one of the WRLC libraries, click the Sign In option then scroll to the Get It area to find the Consortium Loan Service (CLS) request form; this will request delivery of the item from the owning library to Himmelfarb or the VSTC Library in Ashburn.
For articles for which there is no Available Online link, you can use the Docs2Go form which is also an option under Get It. A Docs2Go request will order a scan of the item from another library through our interlibrary loan services.
I Can’t Find What I Want, or I Just Need Help - What Do I Do Now?
Use our Ask Us Chat service to get help from a librarian. The Ask Us service is embedded in the Search tool in a blue tab on the right side of the screen. The Chat is staffed Monday through Thursday 8:30am-8pm and Friday 8:30am-5pm. Or email a librarian or text us at 202-601-3525.
ILL. CLS. Interlibrary Loan. Consortium Loan Service. Have you heard these terms before? If you have, awesome! If not, let us introduce you to them! We understand that the acronyms may be confusing, and want to take the time to share more about what these two library services can offer you.
Borrowing from other libraries
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) and Consortium Loan Service (CLS) provide materials that the library does not currently have access to such as medical articles, book chapters, and books to our GW medical, health sciences, nursing and public health students, staff and faculty members. We understand that your research is important, and will do everything that we can to provide the books and articles that you may need for your studies and research.
Consortium Loan Service
Consortium Loan Service, or CLS for short, is a free service that allows our users to request books that are available within the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC). What this means is that if Georgetown (for example) has a book that you would like to borrow, CLS makes it possible to borrow their copy. One benefit of borrowing books through CLS is that this is the fastest way for us to borrow books from other libraries within the D.C. area as materials arrive usually within 2-3 days after the request has been placed. We rely on a courier service for the expedited delivery of books within business days. For detailed information about our CLS service, check out our Consortium Loan Service Guide!
How do I place a CLS request?
Search for the book you are looking for in the Himmelfarb catalog advanced search. Make sure that Articles + GW & Consortium Catalog is selected.
Under “How to get it” click Sign In. Use your GW Net ID & password to login.
Under “How to get it” click “Consortium Loan Service Request”
Specify where you would like to pick the book up, at the Himmelfarb library, or at our Ashburn location.
Interlibrary Loan
If you are looking for an article or book that is not available in our catalog or through CLS, Interlibrary Loan (ILL), is a great option! Through ILL, we can request books and articles from libraries across the country on your behalf. Articles normally take 24-72 hours to be delivered. Books may take longer depending on how far away the lending library is from D.C. For detailed information about our ILL service, check out our Interlibrary Loan and Documents2Go guide!
Log in using your GW Net ID & password. Make sure to leave out any ‘@gwu.edu’ part of your net ID. You will not be able to access your account if you include it.
To make a request:
Find the “Make a new request” menu item.
Select the type of resource you want to request : article, book, or book chapter.
Please be as detailed as possible in order to help us find the exact resource you need. Include the journal title, article title, page number, volume, or year, and author.
Click the ‘Submit Request’ when you are ready to place your request.
Once you’ve placed your request, we will do our best to find the resource from another library.
Once we receive a PDF of the requested article, or book chapter, you will receive an email notification informing you that you can access your article through your Documents2Go portal. Keep in mind, these articles disappear after 30 days on your account, so download it if you want permanent access to the material!
If the item you requested is a physical book, once we receive the item, you will receive a notification informing you that the item is available for pick up at the Himmelfarb Circulation Desk, or at the Ashburn Library.
Does it cost money?
CLS requests are free! As for ILL, we offer 15 requests for free to all GW medical, health sciences, nursing and public health students, staff and faculty members from the dates of January 1st to July 1st. Afterwards, we offer another free 15 starting from July 1st, to the end of December. This amount resets each calendar year. Any additional requests over the initial 15 will incur an additional $10.00 charge. We will contact you to confirm any charges, which you can deny or accept. Rush requests, which guarantees article delivery within 24 hours, will cost an additional $10. In the event that we are unable to fulfill a rush request within 24 hours, you will not be charged.
How long does it take to receive my article or book?
In most cases, we should be able to provide an article to you within 3 to 6 days. Depending on availability and rarity of the article, it may take us longer to receive a PDF for your request. If a request is taking longer than expected to fulfill, we will contact you.
Books generally take anywhere from one to two weeks to receive, depending on the library’s location that ships the book to us, and the shipping method they use. Because of the unpredictable nature of book requests, we would recommend using CLS whenever possible to ensure a more timely arrival of any book requests.
My CLS request was cancelled, what should I do now?
If the book you are looking for is not available through CLS, the request will be cancelled. When this happens, we recommend submitting your request through our Documents2Go portal.
If you have additional questions, or want to better understand the difference between these two borrowing services that Himmelfarb has to offer, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at mlbdoc@gwu.edu.
Have you taken advantage of our Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service? If you are unfamiliar with ILL, it is a service that allows you to request articles and books that are not currently a part of the current Himmelfarb collection. If you are interested in learning more about our Interlibrary, or “ILL” service, feel free to check out our ILL guide. Our guide also provides answers to questions such as “How long will my request take?” Or “How much does a rush request cost?”
GW SMHS, SON, and SPH faculty, students, residents and staff are entitled to 15 free requests through the period of January to the end of June. Starting July 1st, the number resets and our SMHS, SON, and SPH users are able to request another 15 through the period of June to the end of December. The limit will reset again on January 1st.
Any requests past the allocated 15 will incur a $10 charge. Users will be notified of this before their request is submitted and we will not proceed until the user agrees to pay for the additional request/s.
As always, if you have any questions you can contact our ILL department at mlbdoc@gwu.edu. We are more than happy to answer any and all inquiries you may have!
Ever try to access an ebook in the Himmelfarb Library collection and get the message “Sorry, this ebook is in use”? Ever wonder why we can’t just scan entire books in our collection to create an electronic copy? Ever get frustrated by a broken article link in Blackboard and wonder why they couldn’t just upload a PDF? While these seem like questions about different systems, they all come down to the same thing - copyright.
When a library acquires an ebook, they don’t actually own the ebook - they license a copy from the publisher. The same thing happens when you “purchase” an ebook from Amazon. And much like Amazon ebooks come with publisher restrictions in place to prevent piracy, library ebooks have their own limits established by the publishers. These include everything from limits to how many pages you can save or print to how many people can access the ebook at once. If you’re trying to access one of our eBooks and get a message that someone else is using the book, usually if you wait 15-20 minutes and try again you’ll be able to get in.
As for scanning entire physical books to create our own electronic copies, that would violate copyright laws. However, when working with copyrighted materials in academia we are allowed a little more flexibility thanks to the fair use doctrine. Essentially, fair use allows us to use copyrighted material without explicit permission from the copyright holder. The fair use doctrine even explicitly mentions educational purposes as one of the main reasons it exists. When it comes to scanning physical books, generally the fair use guidelines state that you can scan one chapter or less than 10% of the book. This allows us to take advantage of our InterLibrary Loan system to the fullest, so you can access chapters from books not in our collection.
Fair use is also why we provide durable links to articles in Blackboard rather than full PDFs. Reproducing the full PDF would require your professor to obtain permission from the copyright holder. Linking to the article in Himmelfarb’s collection doesn’t. If you ever run into a broken link in Blackboard, get in touch with your professor and let us know at himmelfarb@gwu.edu so we can update the link.
Effective immediately, the Himmelfarb Library Documents2Go Interlibrary Loan service will ship books directly to your home! What this means is that if we do not have the book that you need, we will borrow it from another university library; once we receive the book, we will ship it to you at any location within the United States.
How to request a book through Documents2Go:
Visit Documents2Go then login to our Documents2Go service with your NetID and password.
Example: If your email is jdoe@gwu.edu, your username would be: jdoe, and your password would be the same as your GW email password. Do NOT include ‘@gwu.edu’ in your username.
Designate if you are looking for an article or a book, and then provide as much information as you are able to better assist us in finding exactly what you are looking for.
What to expect, how long will it take?:
These types of requests can take some time as we need to first find a library that is willing to send their copy of the book to us and then wait to receive it. The timing is also dependent on the shipping service the lending library uses, such as USPS, FedEx, or UPS. Shipping from the lending library to Himmelfarb can take 1-2 weeks, and then an additional week or so for us to send it to your location. Please allow roughly 3 weeks for us to get the book to you from the time you create your request. We highly recommend requesting materials well before you need them.
What will it cost me?
We will send these books to you free of charge, however if you want us to send an ILL book to your location, we ask that you pay return costs associated with shipping the book back to the Himmelfarb Library, and that you accept financial responsibility for any lost or damaged books. Once your request arrives to us, you will receive an email asking you to accept these responsibilities, along with a link to provide your shipping information so that we can send the book promptly to you.
Can I request Himmelfarb to mail me a book the library already owns?
Absolutely. If you would like us to check out and send one of our books to you, please fill out the shipping form here:
As Himmelfarb Library begins the transition into Our New Normal, you may have questions about where to access certain services and resources we provide. Here’s a guide on what you’ll find available online and in-person.
Online
All of our e-journals, e-databases, and e-books remain available online. We also provide our Documents2Go service entirely online, where you can request articles unavailable in our collection.
We offer instructions on downloading and installing our mobile apps to your device.
Himmelfarb’s Reference team is also available online. Our chat service is monitored by reference staff 8:30AM-8PM EST Monday through Thursday and 8:30AM-5PM EST Friday. Have a question a little too involved for chat? We can also schedule individual meetings with a reference librarian via WebEx. Email us at himmelfarb@gwu.edu to start the process!
In-Person
In addition to our print collection available in our book stacks, you can also find our multimedia collection, audiovisual collection, and software resources on the third floor, in the Bloedorn Technology Center.
Our special collections, the Humanities & Health collection, Historical collection, and Healthy Living collection, are all accessible in-person.
Some of our older journals are kept in on-site storage as bound volumes. You can request a specific volume for perusal by following the instructions on our Borrowing and Requesting page.
Anatomy models are available in various places throughout the library. Our skeletal models and bone boxes are up on the third floor. Heart and brain models can be checked out at the Circulation desk.
If you have any questions about access as we move forward with Our New Normal, reach out to us at himmelfarb@gwu.edu or call the Circulation Desk at 202-994-2962.
Himmelfarb Library would like to welcome all of our new users! Whether you are a new resident, fellow, physician assistant or public health student, we welcome you to the GW community! Himmelfarb is ready to serve you and help make your experience here a positive one. You may be curious about what Himmelfarb has to offer and how you can make the most of our resources and services. Here are the top five things we’d like you to know about Himmelfarb:
1) Getting Research Help is Easy!
Our reference librarians are available to answer your questions and provide research support when and where you need help. Get your research and library-related questions answered right from your computer by using the Ask a Librarian service! Reference librarians are available to answer your texts and instant message questions Monday-Thursday from 8:30am-8:00pm, and Friday from 8:30am-5:00pm.
2) Himmelfarb Resources are Available Anytime, Anywhere.
Himmelfarb’s 100 databases, 4,100 journals, and 4,500 e-books are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our e-book collection includes most major textbooks from most fields. Install the LibKey Nomad Google Chrome browser extension for seamless and speedy access to full-text articles available through Himmelfarb. After installing the extension, choose ‘George Washington University - Himmelfarb Library’ as your institution, and you’ll be all set. For more information about accessing Himmelfarb’s online resources including tips for navigating articles, check out our E-Resources FAQs page.
To access our electronic resources from off-campus, we recommend connecting to the GW VPN. The Himmelfarb off-campus access page provides additional information about installing the VPN and accessing electronic resources with your GW NetID. Many of our resources are also available as mobile apps for download on your mobile devices.
3) 3D Printing is Available!
Himmelfarb has a 3D printer available for use by faculty, staff and students in SMHS, SON, GWSPH, the GW Hospital and the MFA. 3D printing will be available once the library opens its doors again. For more information about 3D printing at Himmelfarb, check out our 3D Printing Guide.
4) If We Don’t Have It, We’ll Do Our Best To Get It For You.
While we attempt to make our collection as robust as possible, we don’t have access to everything. In the event that we don’t have access to a resource that you need, you can place a request through our Interlibrary Loan/Documents2Go service. Through this service, we are able to work with a nationwide network of libraries to obtain a copy of a needed resource on your behalf. Articles are normally delivered within 24-72 hours. Interested in learning more about this service? Check our in-depth Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery guide.
5) The Health Sciences Research Commons Can Expand the Reach of Your Research!
Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC) is Himmelfarb’s institutional repository, and is a perfect place for you to share your research output during your time at GW. All faculty, researchers, students (with the sponsorship of a faculty member), and staff affiliated with SMHS, SON, GWSPH at GW are eligible to submit their scholarly works to HSRC. By placing your work in HSRC, your work will be easily shareable and discoverable via Google Scholar and other search engines. If you have questions about the HSRC, take a look at the FAQ page or contact Sara Hoover (shoover@gwu.edu), Metadata and Scholarly Publishing Librarian, for more information.
This top five list is just a glimpse into all that Himmelfarb has to offer! In addition to the resources mentioned above, we have numerous research guides on a wide variety of topics. Tutorials are also available on a variety of topics. Himmelfarb welcomes you to the GW community!
After Himmelfarb Library closed its physical space, we made changes to Health Information @ Himmelfarb to make searching for electronic content easier. The default search mode was switched from Articles + Himmelfarb Catalog to Online Access. The online access search limits items retrieved to those available full-text online. This includes article, book chapter, and e-book content, as well as some streaming media.
Searchers can still search physical content by switching the search mode to any of the “catalog” options:
Requesting holds on books and Consortium Loan request options are turned off until Himmelfarb and other Washington Research Library Consortium libraries reopen. Library users can continue to request items that can be sent digitally through our Documents2Go service.
Have you ever wanted to keep filters you applied in a search active throughout a search session, or easily remove all of them? Now you can! A new enhancement allows setting and keeping multiple filters active with “Remember all filters” or removing all with “Reset filters”. These options become available at the top of the left column menu whenever filters are applied.
During the week of March 16, Himmelfarb Library's hours have been changed:
The library will be open for use and Circulation Services will be available:
Monday, March 16 - Thursday, March 19: 8:00am until midnight
Friday, March 20: 8:00 am until 8:00 pm
Saturday, March 21 - Sunday, March 22: 8:00 am until 6:00 pm
The Library's Reference Desk will provide service to users during normal hours via remote options including instant message, email, and text. Please Ask a Librarian - we are ready to provide reference and research support!
Monday, March 16 - Thursday, March 19: 8:30 am until 8:00 pm
Friday, March 20: 8:30 am until 5:00 pm
Saturday, March 21: 12:00 pm until 5:00 pm
All electronic collections are available: 24/7. For instructions on remote access, please refer to our off-campus access page.
Consortium Loan Service will have normal operations; Documents2Go service will provide normal services for electronic holdings; services for print items will not be available. If the status of these services changes, we will provide updated information.
