Since I started my life in Academia, I sometimes found that there are some seminal papers to which I cannot get any access.
Either they are very old, and the journal that published them charges for it, or they are simply not to be found anywhere in the internet. I have to admit I never went to look for the physical copy in the library, but I'm not sure they would have it either.
When I asked a labmate about a reference he had in his paper and I could not find, and that seemed to be ubiquitous in any other paper in the area, he mentioned me he had never read it, but that reviewers usually demand that you should put that seminal reference.
How do you try and solve this problem?
Answer
- Search the web for it: open archives, search engine, authors webpages, whatever (you've probably done that already…)
- Ask the contact author for a copy, which she'll usually be very happy to provide. I regularly get such requests from other researchers in my field, and it feels very good to know that people are actually interested in your work.
- If the contact author doesn't respond, try the senior author, then other authors.
- Try your local library. Look into their database, and also ask the librarian there if the document might be available through loan from other libraries. I've never had much success doing that, but you never know…
- Ask a few colleagues at different institutions if they can get it for free (see this question). If you have friends at large/famous/well-funded US universities (Princeton, Harvard, …), they probably have a more comprehensive access than you.
- If it's a really important paper, pay for it!
Whatever happens, make sure you make a copy for others in your lab/group, and archive it. When I started my PhD, there was a folder (the heavy paper type, not the computer type) labeled “important but hard to find papers” that the group had accumulated along the years. It was the most treasured object in the whole lab.
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