Was: Re: minimum temp for Nerine? Now: Getting obscure academic articles

Knisely, Jonathan jonathan.knisely@yale.edu
Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:09:16 PDT
Max Withers wrote a good posting about incomplete and confusing data relating to minimum temperatures tolerated by Nerine species.  I wanted to just chime in that most authors of academic papers are generally delighted to have their work noted and read.  I have found it fruitful to seek out the email address of authors of publications that are not routinely available through my library sources and request a copy of the article be sent to me as an email attachment.

In days gone by, this sort of request might have often taken the form of a postcard mailed to the corresponding author listed in the article's abstract.  The response came as a physical 'reprint' that was printed at the time of the original publication and would be delivered in the regular post.

Currently, a pdf file is often on the author's hard drive and can be sent and delivered in a few seconds.  If a copy of the paper is not available as a pdf to the author, it is now possible to photocopy (on a digital copier) a physical 'reprint' and turn that file into a pdf file suitable for attaching to email.  That may be a possibility that can be broached if the author indicates that she or he doesn't have any copies of it to send as email attachments...the administrative staff is often able to assist with things like this!

I hope that a few minutes on Google and then on your email account will help Max get his 'obscure article', and that this suggestion will help more of you get the information that you're craving.

Jonathan Knisely
New Haven, CT
USDA 6a


More information about the pbs mailing list