Distance Learning Students: Home

Our general borrowing policies can be found here.  

• Distance learning students are issued Defiance College ID cards when they register. Contact Student Life if you did not receive a card.
• The borrowing link above has a picture of an ID card for your reference.
• You will use the barcode number on your ID card to access online databases or borrow items from Defiance's or OhioLink's collections.

The library's website defaults to Jacket Search, which searches Defiance's and OhioLink's catalogs, as well as journal databases.

If you want to search for books or audiovisuals only, you can go directly to Defiance's catalog.

You can use an option within Defiance's catalog to jump to OhioLink's, or you can go directly to OhioLink's catalog.

If you need help, try one of our tutorials, which include videos demonstrating catalog searching.

Ohio resident distance learning students should use the option in the OhioLink catalog request process that allows you to choose to have the print item sent to the OhioLink library closest to you. This tutorial demonstrates how to borrow materials from OhioLink's catalog.  This OhioLink page provides a list and map of the member libraries.

If you are a Defiance College student who is a resident outside of Ohio and taking courses online, you can request print material from OhioLink's catalog and have it shipped to Defiance's Pilgrim Library.  Library staff will then ship the material to your home.  You must allow 5-10 days for us to receive the material from the owning library and then ship it to you.  Only items with a 3-week loan period can be shipped, since shorter loan periods (1-week audiovisuals) do not allow enough shipping time before the item is due.

You are responsible for returning the item to the Pilgrim Library via a trackable package service, such as UPS, FedEx, or USPS's tracked mailings.  Students assume responsibility for materials, whether in transit to you or being returned by you.

Pilgrim Library will not ship print library materials outside of the United States.  Contact a librarian for help locating materials that may be available to you nearby.

Accessing journal articles is easy for distance learning students.

• You can use the "Jacket Search" feature on our website (the page defaults to Jacket Search), which will search for both journal articles and print materials in the catalog.  
• Or, go directly to the database page and select the database you need. and begin your search.
• Don't know which database to use?  View our suggestions in our subject Research Guides.
• If you are accessing them from a computer off campus or via a personal device, you will be asked to validate by entering your name and the barcode on your Defiance College ID card.
• Many journal articles are available in full text in the databases, often in PDF or HTML format, which you can access immediately
• If you find an article you need that is not available via full text, you can copy and paste the citation information into our interlibrary loan form.  Library staff will then request the article for you from another library, usually for free. It will arrive in electronic format via email.
• If you need more help, tutorials offer demonstrations of Jacket Search, Interlibrary Loan, and other topics.

OhioLink provides tens of thousands of electronic books to member library users.  You can access them via:

Jacket Search, the Library's "Search it all" feature, which our website defaults to. Look for the e-book icons in the left column of your hit list.

Defiance's online catalog  (you can limit the search to e-books only with the "material type" drop-down menu)

Electronic Book Center (one of OhioLink's databases, hosted by Biblioboard)

Visit our tutorials page to view videos demonstrating how to find and use ebooks.

If you are accessing an e-book from off-campus or via a personal device, you will be asked for your name and barcode number from your Defiance College ID card, so that the OhioLink computer can verify that you are registered at a member institution library, and have therefore paid for access.