How can I obtain technical papers?

Question

Does a reference such as:

Salgado, L. & Azpilicueta, C., 2000. "Un nuevo saltasaurino (Sauropoda, Titanosauridae) de la provincia de Río Negro (Formacion Allen, Cretácico superior), Patagonia, Argentina," Ameghiniana 37(3): 259-264.

contain enough information for me to track down a copy?

Answer

How It's Done Today

Some technical papers, though probably not a very large proportion, are available on the web. Unfortunately, the standard problem of the web bites hard here: it's a big web, and it's hard to find your way around it.

There are at least three good places to start:

• The newest and possibly best is BioOne at www.bioone.org, which has an impressively wide range of freely available recent technical papers, either to read on-line (in HTML) or to download and print (in PDF). Still in the experimental phase, and the searching is painfully slow, but it's staggeringly useful.
• The next best approach is generally to look on the webpage of the Journal in which the paper was presented. Jerry Harris maintains an excellent page of links to various journals' home pages: you can find it at http://cactus.dixie.edu/jharris/Journal_Links.html
• Another place to try is the search4science web site at www.search4science.com, but my experience is that it's recall is so-so and its precision miserable.

Papers that don't make it onto the web are available in paper or microfiche at many University libraries. One correspondent drives into Memphis and uses the Library at the University of Memphis. Another works on-campus, so uses his university's library for what material it has, but also points out that there are many more available through interlibrary loan. Many non-academic libraries will also be able to help here.

Additionally, many authors will provide xeroxes on request, but of course that just introduces the problem of finding out contact details for authors. One correspondent said ``just track them down, and call or e-mail them with the request'', which makes it sound easy. When I commented that ``I just don't know how this stuff works'', he replied, ``Neither does anyone else really. There's no standard procedure. Hang in there.'' :-)

The good news is, although the way things work is far too loose and haphazard to dignify with the name ``system'', it does work. I know this because I tested it, and am now the proud owner of a nice, new paper that (of course) I can't understand. Here's how it worked.

• Someone posted a message on the DINOSAUR mailing list (see www.psych.ucsb.edu/~rowe/dinosaur-administrivia.html) announcing the publication of several new papers, one of which was about the fascinating and frankly impossible dinosaur Sauroposeidon. I really wanted to read that paper. The reference given for the paper was:

  Wedel, MJ, Cifelli, RL & Sanders, RK. 2000. Osteology, paleobiology, and relationships of the sauropod dinosaur Sauroposeidon. ACTA PALAEONTOLOGICA POLONICA. 45 (4) : 343- 388

• I went to Jerry Harris's ``journal links'' web page, and found the entry for the journal in which the paper was published - Acta Palaeontologica Polonica at www.paleo.pan.pl/acta/acta.htm)
• I bodged my way around the web site until I found the page for the relevant issue of the journal, in the hope of finding that I could download a copy of the copy of the paper. I couldn't, but ...
• Along with an abstract of the paper, the web page contained email addresses for the authors. I picked the first one listed, Matt Wedel <sauropod@ou.edu>
• I sent a short message to Matt expressing an interest in the paper, and asking whether there was any way for someone without access to an academic library to get hold of a copy, short of subscribing to the journal.
• He emailed me back saying that he'd be pleased to send me a paper copy by snail mail, and asking for my address. He also flatly refused to let me pay him for postage, copying costs, etc.
• Since then, I have been happily swapping emails with Matt on a wide variety of big-sauropod subjects - he's amazingly friendly and helpful.

Stop Press. Since I obtained the Sauroposeidon paper by the method described above, it's been made available online, along with a lot of other material, on the web site of the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at www.snomnh.ou.edu/publications/Articles/index.shtml

How It Will Be Done Tomorrow

There's a lot of interest in establishing an automated web-based system for retrieving, if not actual soft-copy papers, then at least definitive references and/or instructions for obtaining hard-copy.

No promises on this yet - it's at a very early stage.