Library question

punka

Does anyone know what the dealio is with inter-library loans? Am I able to claim back the money spent off college if I need to get books in for my thesis? The library's lacking a LOT of stuff I need and some of the american dissertations I need will apparently set me back up to €80 a pop. That adds up to a pretty expensive thesis. Will college reimburse me?

fade

why not ask the library instead, i would have thought that that would be the obvious course of action......

xeduCat

No. But look for online sources before ordering. Also, if it's very expensive, it's sometimes cheaper to get a Ryanair flight and go to the British Library or Cambridge (with the appropriate letters of introduction!). The added bonus is that the BL is a very cool building, and they deliver your stacks requests to your desk. But Cambridge is cheaper to get to (fly to Stansted and get a national express bus,takes about 45 minutes flying and 45 mins on the bus).

DrIndy

Jaysus....... lot of trouble!

As a copyright library, surely we should be better stocked and not outdone by our sister uni of cambridge?

xeduCat

US dissertations aren't 'published' and thus don't come under the copies-for-copyright requirement....most US publishers dual-publish in London and New York,but that's commercial rather than just someone submitting PhD work. But Cambridge and the BL have more money ;-)

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

if you are a postgrad talk to your supervisor. lecturer's don't have to pay themselves for interlibrary loans so they might be willing to order it through their library account. p.s. if that doesn't work look up the Dissertation Abstracts database on the library database page and order through them. The last thesis i purchased from them cost 33 dollars and you get to keep it.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

just checked that database and it still costs 33 dollars for a PDF download of a dissertation: http://wwwlib.global.umi.com/dissertations/gateway

obviously asking your supervisor to order to far preferable as it is free to you - most will oblige.

In case you haven't seen US dissertations before, be prepared for their relatively poor quality versus a European PhD - they spend far less time on writing their PhD's and more time in the classroom (if you already know this, then apologies for pointing out the obvious!)

punka

thanks guys,
luckily i can get some of the more recent us dissertations online, so hopefully that'll cut down on costs. i was able to see some sample pages and so far i'd have to concur with roundtower2's comment - they really are of a lower quality than any irish/british dissertations i've seen!
that's a really good suggestion educat, think i might try and head over to the bodleian in oxford for a few days this term if i can manage it.

ISAW

punka wrote:

thanks guys,
luckily i can get some of the more recent us dissertations online, so hopefully that'll cut down on costs.

Why not contact the original author and get them to email you a copy?

punka

ISAW wrote:

Why not contact the original author and get them to email you a copy?

I wasn't sure if that'd be appropriate or not, but I suppose it'd be good from a building contacts point of view too. Some of them don't appear to be in academia anymore, however, which makes it harder to track them down.....