Tuesday, April 25, 2006

I recently heard from a colleague that she recognized some of the questions in the blog as coming from her MLIS students. To which I say: busted!

I'm pleased, though, that another colleague may be looking at the blog as a model for sharing reference information in another library on campus. Happy to be of service (if I am...)

And here's the latest batch:
  • I need a copy of the book Tropic of Orange. Where can I find one?
  • I have a list of numerous Indian literature references (to books and articles) that I found in a database...how do I find the actual articles in the library? And how do I do ILL to get books from other UC schools?
  • I'm looking for articles about the pop singer Selena's influence on Chicano and mainstream music. Where do I start?
  • I have some citations for books and articles about nineteenth-century women and reading, and don't know how to look them up.
  • I need access to some articles from Psychological Science. How do I get them? And how do I get an image of the cover of the journal?
  • I'm interested in the subject of how Hollywood, and Western values in general, are changing traditional belly dance and hula dance styles. My paper is due in two days. Where do I start?
  • I need a copy of Basho's Oku no hosomichi in English.
  • I need to find primary source materials for my paper about how children were targeted by advertising and propaganda during WWII.
  • I looked up several citations about Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf. How do I get my hands on them?
  • I have a long list of citations having to do with the history of black people in Oklahoma, which I need to look up. I'm not a UCB student and I don't know how to tell whether a citation is for an article, book, dissertation, interview, or other material. Help!
  • Where is the Graduate Services library?
  • I need a citation for something called "Clothing Matters," by Emma Tarlo. I'm not sure whether it's a book or an article. (It's a book; author's surname is Tarlow.) [May have been posted before; operator error?]
  • I'm doing a paper on child labor in India. What databases should I use to find articles?
  • Where can I find letters from Thomas Cromwell, a lawyer involved with the building of the Panama Canal? If I can't find those, can I find any letters or diaries of Phillipe Bunau-Varilla, who was also involved in the project?
  • Where can I found out about religious demographics at Berkeley? I.e., I want to find out what population of the student body is of various religions.
  • How can I find newspaper articles from the 1960s about the Free Speech Movement? I need articles from the New York Times, the LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Daily Californian, and the Oakland Tribune.
  • I found a couple of articles on whale-hunting in Washington state from The Economist in the middle-late nineties, but I can't figure out how to get them without paying for them online. Does the library have access to this journal?
  • I need a copy of The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir.
  • Where can I find a copy of The Lord of the Flies?

Friday, April 14, 2006

The latest crop...
  • I'm looking for articles about Vermeer and the paintings he did on the subject of letters--i.e., letter-writing studies. I want to find full-text articles that are peer-reviewed. Art Full Text isn't producing any full text articles. What should I do?
  • Where can I find a copy of the journal History and Philosophy of Science?
  • Where can I find a copy of Orlando, by Virginia Woolf? I keep finding criticism instead.
  • I'm doing research on Katrina in New Orleans and past floods in the Netherlands. I'm interested in the history of the urban planning, the levees and dikes, the decision-making process, and so on. My topic isn't really fixed yet.
  • Where can I find reviews of the book Mr. Bligh's Bad Language?
  • I'm looking for law books. I don't care what they're about--I just need some impressive-looking law tomes for a set I'm designing.
  • How can I find books by the author Le Hang? If the books are held at the remote storage facility, how do I get hold of them?
  • I have an article called "Physics and Music" that I copied from Scientific American, but I don't know which issue or volume it was from. How can I find out?
  • Where can I find out the number of deaf or hearing impaired people in the U.S., broken down by race?
  • I'm looking for books and articles about structured adjustment programs, which are economic plans used by the World Bank and the IMF in negotiations with developing countries. I'm supposed to find materials that are in discourse with each other--i.e., pieces arguing different sides of a topic.
  • Where can I find newspaper articles about the Vietnam War from African-American news sources in the 1960s and 1970s? I want to find primary source evidence of how black Americans felt disillusioned about the war and the country.
  • I need a copy of Mme. de La Fayette's Histoire de Madame Henriette d'Angleterre in French, by tonight. All copies are checked out--my whole class is using it.
  • I have a list of books by and about Rumi--I have call numbers, but don't know which libraries the books are in. How do I find out?
  • I'm doing a paper about maquiladoras and women's reproductive rights in Mexico. Where can I find more information?

There may be a few repeats in here--there seems to have been some small snafu in my highly scientific "save as draft" procedures. Apologies for any doubling up.

Friday, April 07, 2006

The latest batch of reference questions...
  • I need a copy of the book City of Quartz. All the (numerous) Cal copies are out or on reserve. How can I get one? (Asked twice in one shift--the second time was apparently just a coincidental request by someone who wanted to read the book for pleasure. Unfortunately, every single copy in the system is somehow spoken for.)
  • I'm looking for a book by Ronald Egon, about sushi. (Author is actually Ronald Egan, and subject is person named Su Shi.)
  • Does the library have a scanner with a backlight I can use?
  • Where is the Regional Oral History Office, and how do I get in touch with them?
  • Where can I find a copy of the book Pathology of Occupational Lung Disease? Can I borrow it if I'm not a Berkeley student?
  • I need a copy of Edward Said's Orientalism.
  • I'm looking for an article about film noir by an author whose name I think is Jonathan Buschbaum. He was mentioned in my film class. (Author's surname is spelled Buchsbaum.)
  • I'm looking for articles about EPO, or erythropoietin, a performance-enhancement drug used by cyclists and cross-country skiers. I could also use just a general, basic rundown on what the drug is and what it does.
  • I need to see some articles written by Alexander Cockburn in The Nation, from the 1980s. The Nation Digital Archive isn't producing the full text, just the abstracts.
  • I'm in a class about Aeschylus and want to write about tragedy. I'm interested in Dionysian festivals and their relation to tragedy. My professor has mentioned some particular critics in class, but they write only in French. Can I find translations of their work in English? Also, I'm looking for information about the play Agamemnon. I need in-depth criticism of Aeschylus and tragedy from a Dionysian perspective.
  • Is this encyclopedia a primary source?