Years ago, when I was a Compuserve subscriber, I used to search Index
Medicus and PsychINFO online, and then, link to a documents retrieval
service. Someone from this service would (somewhere in the world,
usually California) run over to a university library, photocopy the
article, and either snailmail or fax it to me. It was expensive, but
in a pinch, very helpful.

So, here's the question: where can I find such a service on the
internet? I've searched for "document retrieval services" and various
permutations/combinations, but come up with people who want to sell me
software OR say they will do this for disabled people. I do not want
the former, and on most days I am not the latter. Any ideas?

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Request for Question Clarification by easterangel-ga on 25 Sep 2002 18:43 PDT

Hi! In what field of study do you require these articles? Does it also
need to be delivered to you in hardcopy like mail or fax? Just let me
know.

The service that you are looking for is Infotrieve
http://www.infotrieve.com/

According to blurb on the company's site:

"Combining high responsiveness with cost efficiency, the extensive
Infotrieve network provides access to the world's largest library of
journal content... Vast information and journalistic resources are
available with varied choices in distribution, namely aggregated
electronic and paper delivery, a distinct advantage over paper-only
aggregation."

"Virtual Library seamlessly combines research, document search and
retrieval, and cataloging. Operating as the first free-to-search,
pay-per-article system, Virtual Library is designed to deliver
significant time and cost benefits to consumers, without requiring a
subscription."

" Article Finder: Infotrieve's free-to-search proprietary
bibliographic database containing over 22 million citations and over
10 million abstracts from more than 35,000 of the most important
scholarly journals from fields such as medicine, biotechnology,
science, engineering, and law."

" E-journal collection: This fast growing collection is available on a
pay-per-article basis and is expected to reach several thousand
journals in 2001
Table of Contents Alert Service :An active search feature that e-mails
the table of contents of selected journals to customers when a new
issue is released, allowing the customer to browse the article topics
and order only desired pieces."

For each article, you pay a $12 service fee ($14 outside USA, Mexico
and Canada) plus copyright fees, which vary with the journal.  You can
pay for single articles by credit card, or, alternatively, you can
open a deposit (minimum deposit is $500).

I knew of Infotrieve already, so did not need to search.  The
operative phrase for a search is "document delivery".  Searching
Google on this phrase, I found lists of many other document delivery
services at http://www.docdel.net/ Not all the links provided there
are valid.  However, you may wish to look at some of these other
providers, although to my knowledge Infotrieve is supposed to be the
leading service in this area that is available to individuals as well
as to libraries.

Proquest might be helpful
http://www.proquest.com/

You might want to check out PubMed's Loansome Doc
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/loansome_doc.html

You need to be aware that the Loansome Doc service requires
registration with a library through whom the document delivery will be
chanelled.  Proquest does mention a service for individuals on its web
site, however it does not provide any details of how this works.