From ‘Digital Editions’ to File Open

A more efficient way to receive documents by email

When articles are not available from Medical & Healthcare Libraries they can be requested via the Document Delivery service and delivered either by post or by email.

The email option involves what is known as ‘digital rights management’ aimed at securing article content from being illicitly copied or distributed to comply with copyright legislation.  Until recently a program called Adobe ‘Digital Editions’ was the sole means of obtaining copyrighted material via ‘Secure Electronic Delivery’.  But there are frequent installation, activation and authorisation problems with Digital Editions which has effectively meant that many people have been unable to avail of the service.

Now there is a new system known as ‘FileOpen’ which is much more straightforward and less prone to error.  It simply requires a small add-on for Adobe Reader to be installed on any PC on which articles are to be received.  Articles then open in Adobe Reader without the need for any additional software.

The Medical & Healthcare Library will be implementing the new system from 9th November 2009.