Frequently Asked Questions about the eLibrary

Papers presented at SPE conferences and published in any of the SPE peer-reviewed technical journals.  SPE's eLibrary is also being expanded to handle other types of materials, including distinguished lecturer presentations and special or plenary session presentations at meetings.

The number of papers in the eLibrary grows by approximately 2,000 papers per year. SPE has undertaken a project to add papers back to 1925 to the eLibrary. As of September 2008, the eLibrary included more than 50,000 papers.

Before SPE implemented its "no paper, no podium" policy, some papers were presented at SPE meetings but the manuscript was not supplied to SPE by the authors. Sometimes SPE receives the paper, but does not receive a transfer of copyright.  Without copyright permission from the authors, the papers cannot be posted on the eLibrary. Sometimes SPE sections hold meetings and request that the authors prepare papers, but they do not arrange for these papers to have SPE paper numbers or for authors to provide a transfer of copyright. SPE is willing to work with sections on making their papers available in the eLibrary.

The eLibrary includes an excellent search engine that includes both text searches and searching in specific data fields.  If you are conducting research on a topic, use the text box. Giving the search engine as much information as possible about what you are looking for will help it locate the most relevant documents for you.  Entering only one or two words is likely to return a very large number of documents. More information will allow the search engine to focus on those documents most relevant to you. If you are looking for something specific -- a specific paper or author or journal article -- you can use the individual search fields (paper number, year, title, author, organization, meeting, journal) to identify the documents you seek.

SPE has also added a map-based search option, to assist you when geography is important to your query.  Focus the map on the area of interest, then add keywords to find relevant papers.

After you place your order for a paper, you will have the option of downloading it immediately.  When you click on the title of a paper, you can choose to open it or save it to your hard drive. For Internet Explorer and Netscape users, you can right-click on the title and select Save Target As.. to save the paper to your hard drive without opening it first.

You will also receive an email with information about downloading your purchase, in case you elect not to download it immediately. The email will contain links to print a receipt and to download your papers. You have 6 days from the date of purchase to complete download of your paper. If you encounter difficulty in downloading, contact Customer Service.

SPE eLibrary papers are downloaded as pdf files and require Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.  [Adobe Acrobat Reader is available at no cost from Adobe.] Most of the papers in the eLibrary can be opened with Adobe Acrobat Reader v. 5, but some of the newer documents require v. 6 or higher.  The size of the pdf can vary depending on the length of the paper and the number of color figures in the paper.  Average file size is 700 KB.  Papers with color graphics can be 4 MB or more. SPE makes every effort to minimize the file size. Customers can see the file size on the preview page in the eLibrary.  Those using dial-up connections are urged to consider the file size before making a decision about purchasing the paper.

No.  Use of download accelerators or automated retrieval programs are prohibited by SPE.  Use of these programs affect system performance for all users.  Customers identified as using download accelerators or automated "bots" may have their access privileges to the eLibrary revoked.  Read more about eLibrary access

Papers presented at a meeting are added to the eLibrary beginning the first day of a meeting. Papers published in an SPE journal are added to the eLibrary immediately after publication.

For a corporate subscription, authorized users would include company employees only. For university subscribers, authorized users include students pursuing a degree program at the university, faculty, and staff. For universities, walk-in traffic from the general public to the university library are NOT authorized users and therefore allowing them to use the university subscription to download papers is not acceptable. Members of the general public can access the eLibrary through the internet.

SPE papers are downloaded for "personal" use. Posting of papers on an Intranet or Internet-type site is prohibited without SPE approval (see SPE's Permissions Policy for more information). While the Permissions Policy does not expressly address an internal file system, republication of SPE papers in any form or medium (such as storage on a file system for access by others) is prohibited. The user may make up to 5 copies of a downloaded paper for use by colleagues within the same company or on a joint project team. Acceptable usage of a paper downloaded using a corporate subscription

Corporate subscriptions are the perfect solution for your situation.  Companies can purchase a subscription directly from SPE, or they can use an agent or third party vendor to facilitate the currency transfer.  [Please be aware that SPE does not pay a commission or discount to agents/third party vendors on eLibrary subscriptions, so your corporation may need to compensate them in another way.]  Once the subscription is in place, all of the company's employees are authorized users and can easily download papers from the eLibrary.