5 ms·
There's a cheaper solution for foundational papers. Go to your library and use interlibrary loan. Some libraries also have copying services. I've been trying t
by dalke 11y ago
There's a cheaper solution for foundational papers. Go to your library and use interlibrary loan.
Some libraries also have copying services. I've been trying track down a paper for the Tanimoto similarity. Quoting Wikipedia, "many sources[3] cite an unavailable IBM Technical Report[4] as the seminal reference", where [4] is: Tanimoto, T. (17 Nov 1957). "An Elementary Mathematical theory of Classification and Prediction". Internal IBM Technical Report 1957 (8?).
Worldcat says that 10 page report is on a few library shelves. One of them provides scanning services, for about 50 cents per page, and $7 minimum. I should get it in the mail soon.
If the same fees were to apply to your ACM articles, it would cost about $10(!).
That cost difference makes me mad.
- Natsu 11y agoHopefully the next person after you won't have to search as hard for it, though...
- dalke 11y agoThey won't. The next person will easily find it in WorldCat. When I started looking, WorldCat didn't have the record.
- masklinn 11y ago> There's a cheaper solution for foundational papers. Go to your library and use interlibrary loan. Not sure that's really an option when not in the US.
- kragen 11y agoI think people in the US don't realize how much better the US library system is than most of the rest of the world. Even the developed world!
- dalke 11y agoCould you elaborate? I haven't seen any differences in the Swedish library system compared to the US one, and my experiences with the German libraries have also been good.
- kragen 11y agoI'm sure you know more about the Swedish and German library systems than I do.
- dalke 11y agoSure, but I don't know about 'most of the rest of the [developed] world', which apparently you do.
- kragen 11y agoMy brief visits to France, England, Japan, and Brazil have left me deeply unimpressed with their public library systems. Here in Argentina there are bookstores everywhere but they sell almost exclusively fiction (including astrology, psychology, revisionist history, etc.; maybe "matters of opinion" is a more charitable term) and the library system is a poor shadow of what I'm used to even in the poor parts of the US. And of course Micronesia's library system was a joke when I was there, but it doesn't count as "developed".
- dalke 11y agoBased on your clarification, it appears that your comments are opinion based on a couple of brief personal experiences. From your original comment I assumed you were making a broader and more definite statement. Thank you for correcting my assumption. Regarding the English library system, as JupiterMoon pointed out, the British library provides interlibrary loan services, which is the topic at hand. In fact, I've used it from Sweden.
- kragen 11y ago
- JupiterMoon 11y agoUm really? Where do you get this impression from?
- dalke 11y agoLibraries outside the US also offer interlibrary loan service. Source: I don't live in the US and I use interlibrary loan from the local library.
- roel_v 11y agoI can't claim to know across the world, but in much of Europe you can get a 'visitor' subscription to university libraries for some nominal fee (50 euros or so in my nearest library; hell, enrolling in a Belgian university as a student costs 70 euros per year, which gives you access to the library, e-journals, email, Eduroam, the whole shebang). I get a little irked every time this topic comes up, and people go on and on about the $30 for every paper. Nobody pays that. Who pays sticker for a car? Yes yes publishers are evil, down with the system, bring out the pitchforks - in the mean time, nobody except a very tiny but very vocal minority in the research community gives a shit. If you'd ask 100 people in the offices around me which one they'd prefer: all journals in the world 'open access' and no more big publishers, or a less crap coffee machine in the staff room, 95 of them would go for the coffee machine.
- TheCondor 11y agoThe $30 isnt so much a fee as it is a stupid tax. If you are too stupid to go to a library, you have to pay the tax... What's more, you might be amazed at the lengths librarians will go to help you. Just because it's not on the shelf doesn't mean they don't have access to it or won't get access to it. real science journals are a special case too, they take a lot of space, they get very little actual use, the librarians want them to be read, they'll go above and beyond for a reader.
- kragen 11y agoAre you saying, "if you are too stupid to move out of Argentina"? I think many of us here would take exception to that. And we actually do have a National Library with a few million volumes; it's just that its selection of IBM Internal Technical Reports is relatively thin. My friend who lives in Lahore, like 6 million other people, is not so lucky; his National Library has only some 0.2 million books, and it's a couple of hours away by car. Unlike many of his countrymen, at least he has a car and doesn't live in a part of the country where "Islamist" highwaymen might kidnap you off the highway for ransom. Maybe you think he's stupid for not moving to the US. But I assure you that it is not as easy as all that. I haven't seen my parents in five years, and I miss them.
- 11y ago
- JupiterMoon 11y agoThe British library does this.