interlibrarianism

grr...

I filed an interlibrary loan request yesterday. It being a holiday in the US yesterday, I didn't expect a speedy response. But I was pleasantly surprised to find an email notification this morning in response.

But here is what it said: (emphasis mine):

Dear [trochee],
 
A request you placed:
          
  Author:  Kager, Rene and Wim Zonneveld
  Title: Phrasal Phonology

  UWorld #: 148096 (Borrowing)
 
has been cancelled by the UWorld Express staff for the following reason: 

We are unable to verify this citation and cannot locate any potential
suppliers for this material.
 
Question about this cancelled item should be directed to the 
UWorld Express office at [email] or [number]. Please cite the 
UWorld Number 148096 for the cancelled request.

Thank you for using UWorld Express.

Wait, so they're thanking me for having "used" their service where they do exactly nothing for me, in less than two hours of research, and haven't (1) contacted the book editor or publisher themselves or (2) done basic google research. The PDF of chapter 1 is the second link!

I wrote back immediately to the service and cc'ed the librarian in charge of linguistics. This is why we have a library, and why the university takes such a big cut from grants: it's supposed to support the shared institutions like librarians and people who track down difficult-to-find books. arrgh. It's not like I'm being lazy -- i wrote the linguistics grad students listserve as well. Finally, I couldn't help adding a postscript:

PS: in addition, I would much prefer that you ask me for more information
rather than summarily cancel my request.

how to intimidate librarians [without really trying]

This is a followup to my interlibrary loan fiasco:

But at the same time, I had already sent a request to the linguistics graduate student group. Since several of the faculty read this listserve, one most appropriate ([E]) piped up that she would be interested in that book as well, and she hadn't heard of it. We exchanged a few rounds of email and she offered to loan me one of her books that's currently checked out of the library.

are you in your office today? I wrote to [E]. when might be a good time for me to come by and pick up your book?

Then I sat down to write to the librarian [A] in charge of linguistics, I cc'ed [E] and the ILL folks. [A] -- a godsend among librarians -- tracked the book down at a Dutch library and verified that it existed. He responded (cc'ing me and [E]):

ILL was having a problem with this title, because it exists in no North American Library, nor in any of the libraries in Europe which enter their catalog holdings in the massive OCLC database. ...
I believe, however, I have the answer to your problem. [he found it in Nijmegen; details omitted]
I'd suggest you resubmit your request giving the both the verification record source and the library source. That should be sufficient to move your request forward.

And then [E] responded (to my query about "are you around"):
actually, I'm in my new office at the Dean's offices (I'm acting divisional dean of arts and humanities this year.)

... which explained the panicky, excuse-laden email I got from the supervisor of ILL later that afternoon:
We will re-start the request and attempt to borrow from Nijmegan University. The odds aren't good, but we will give it a try.
[trochee], we will let you know what we hear back from the Netherlands regarding this loan. Our experience is that most European institutions won't lend books overseas; often they do not even respond to international requests. It may we a long process.
--[Supervisor of ILL group]

The short version: how to intimidate librarians? CC a dean when asking for interlibrary loan requests. it gets things done.

alternatives to netflix?

I don't have cable, or a land telephone at home these days. I've kinda liked it that way. When I feel like vegetating, I read a book or listen to the radio. But I wouldn't mind watching movies (or television shows) I liked, especially if I don't have to go to the video store and pick them out -- the work of doing the selection at that moment when i want to vegetate has been a barrier. And I have some money to do it, especially since I'm not paying for cable, or phone, or internet at home.

So I like the idea of Netflix, where I can add movies-i-want-to-see to some online queue that magically (and for a small fee) drops movies-I-said-I-wanted (or TV-I-said-I-wanted) in my mailbox, so they're there when I vegetate. $18 per month seems quite reasonable, actually.

But firinel and marnanel have been having real trouble with them recently, and somebody said they were teamed up with Walmart these days (ick!) -- so are there any other competitors in this business? or does Netflix have the market locked up with a patent?