Secure Electronic Delivery
Quick facts
- The primary aim of the service is to get an article from the BL to the requester than the normal postal/fax method.
- 1 in 3 British Library (BL) document supply customers now use Secure Electronic Delivery (SED).
- Around 30% of the BL’s electronic database can now be downloaded immediately and everything else can be delivered within 2 hours.
- Articles are delivered as encrypted PDFs and are fully copyright compliant
Software requirements for receiving SEDs
Receiving your SED
Printing your SED
Saving your SED
Frequently Asked Questions
Software requirements for receiving SEDs
- You need the full version of Adobe Reader, version 4.0 or later, available free. It is recommended that you download the latest edition.
- You also need the FileOpen plug-in for Adobe, also available free.
- Once you have installed Adobe Reader and the FileOpen plug-in, it is vital that you test whether you can receive documents by SED. If you can read and print this test document you are ready to receive your documents by SED.
Receiving your SED
We will send you an email message to tell you that it is available. This will have your order/request number in the header subject line and will contain the hyperlink(s) to your document(s). Click on the link while your computer is connected to the Internet to download the document.
Note: you are only allowed to access the document from BL's secure server once and the link used to access the article will expire after 14 days.
Do not click on the link if you don't intend to download the document.
You may print only one paper copy, from which you may not make any further copies. You may not make further electronic copies or convert the file into any other format. You may not cut and paste or otherwise alter the text.
Currently you are not permitted to save the SED to your hard drive. See FAQs for further details.
Why do I need the full version of Adobe Reader, as oppose to the basic version?
You need to have the full version installed because the basic version does not contain the Digital Rights Management functions needed to open the encrypted PDF files. If your organisation has restrictions on downloading and installing software, please pass this information to your IT department.
What is the FileOpen plug-in?
FileOpen is a simple, safe and fully compliant Digital Rights Management (DRM) tool that is compatible with every version of Adobe Reader from version 4 and is the world’s most popular document supply DRM tool for document supply companies around the world.
What happens if I still have trouble receiving SEDs?
If you are having trouble receiving SEDs please check with your IT department to ensure that connecting to http://fileopen.bl.uk isn't being blocked by local firewall settings. Please also ask them to ensure port 80 is allowed access. This is a standard port and most firewalls should allow it as a matter of course.
Can I forward the SED to another user?
You can forward the item providing you have not opened the item from the link in the email notification. You can simply forward the email message to your end user for them to open the item. Before doing this, however, do make sure that they have version 4.0 or later of Adobe Reader and the FileOpen plug-in installed on their computer.
Can I save the SED to my hard drive?
Current British Library practice prohibits the storage of articles received via SED. The aim of the service is not for researchers to be able to create any kind of e-repository of articles. Where previously users had a three year acces limit on articles obtained under the copyright fee paid service they will no longer have this limit. Changes in the law as of 01/01/2011 now mean that all articles supplied through SED expire, where there is no agreement to the contrary from the publisher, 14 days after being downloaded. The British Library does not own the copyright on the materials they supply, so are therefore bound to respect all applicable laws, restrictions, licences and agreements.
Can I use Adobe on Microsoft Windows Vista?
Adobe do not currently recommend running Adobe Reader 6 or 7 on Microsoft Vista. However, if you have no alternative, the BL have tested SED downloads on Vista using Adobe Reader 7.0.9 and on their test machines it has been able to read and print SEDs. The official position of Adobe, however, is that there is currently no official support for SEDs on Vista and, therefore, our recommendation is that you stick with earlier versions of Windows, if you can. Adobe's announcements relating to support for Vista are available on their website (see external links).