Secure electronic delivery

Journal articles, book chapters and conference papers supplied by the British Library are delivered to staff and students using DRM Lite, an electronic delivery method where items are sent via an email link and are locked to you as an individual. This method is known as secure electronic delivery and allows you to view your resource on any machine or device with internet access.

To use DRM Lite you will need Adobe Reader version 10 or above installed on your device(s) and a British Library On Demand account. Adobe Reader software is installed on all GCU staff and student machines and is available to download free of charge on your own devices. Once a document has been downloaded, you can continue to use it for up to 3 years.

How to get access

  • Set up an On Demand account first using your university email address before you request an inter-library loan
  • Make your inter-library loan request through Discover. For information on how to do this, visit our inter-library loan pages
  • Check your email for a message from noreply@bldss.bl.uk. Please ensure emails from this address are not being routed into your junk mail folder. The subject header will contain British Library Order and a reference number
  • If you register for On Demand only once your inter-library loan has been supplied, please wait for 10 minutes before opening your item to allow time for the British Library to process your registration
  • Adobe Reader will ask if you want it to remember the username and password information, choose ‘No’ if you are working on a shared or public computer
  • If your web browser has a built in PDF viewer you will need to temporarily disable this to allow the item to open directly into Adobe Reader
  • When you have opened the item you will be able to save it to your device and print it once.  You will be able to view the saved file for up to 3 months or 3 years depending on the publisher
  • To re-open the saved file you must have internet access and enter your On Demand login and password

Download rules

  • Download the document within 30 days of your request
  • You can download and save the file for up to three years
  • Print the document only once
  • Downloaded documents cannot be forwarded to other users

Troubleshooting

To verify that you have everything in place to access secure electronic delivery files please use the test document supplied with your notification email. For problems related to DRM Lite please see British Library’s guidelines here DRM Lite Guidelines (PDF).