DOCLINE

NNLM DOCLINE Support

Please contact your Regional Medical Library (RML) for immediate assistance with DOCLINE.

What is DOCLINE?

DOCLINE is the National Library of Medicine's interlibrary loan (ILL) request routing system. The purpose of the system is to improve access to biomedical literature for libraries in the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) and beyond.

DOCLINE provides efficient lending and borrowing by finding potential lenders for ILL requests via the routing algorithm, which matches requests to lenders, based on their reported journal holdings. This routing algorithm is what makes DOCLINE ILL prompt and accurate.

Requests can be created, routed, received, and updated in this system. Requested materials cannot be transmitted through the website. DOCLINE participants can check the status of requests for which they are either the borrowing or lending library. The DOCLINE User Manual assists the user through the steps needed to accomplish lending, borrowing, and other user tasks.

The system is intended for reciprocal ILL among biomedical libraries in the United States and Canada. It supports resource sharing among participating libraries by enabling them to borrow from and lend to one another; it is not an article purchasing mechanism.

DOCLINE is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Some DOCLINE activities are suspended on U.S. national holidays. Scheduled maintenance is announced to subscribers of the DOCLINE GovDelivery email discussion list.

The dates and times used by the DOCLINE System are based on Eastern Time.

There is no charge for participation in DOCLINE for NNLM members. Interlibrary loan transaction charges vary by lender.

Who Can Use DOCLINE?

Libraries with a health sciences or biomedical literature collection and mission may participate in DOCLINE. Libraries willing to fulfill lending requests from other DOCLINE libraries from a minimum of 10 journals. Currently libraries located outside of the U.S. and Canada, and commercial document delivery vendors are not eligible for DOCLINE membership. To learn more about DOCLINE and how to apply, please review DOCLINE Participation Guidelines.

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