Dick Startz, Economics, and Nancy Huling, UW Libraries, recreate their discoveries.

Everyone Loves Librarians: a shaggy dog story with a couple of pieces of useful information

Dick Startz, Economics

It was a typical day in the city. I was reading my Daily when I realized I needed to take a look at "A Note on Sargan Densities" in the March 1996 issue of the Journal of Econometrics. Bad news: Wouldn't ya know, the volume is at the bindery. Good news: The B-School librarian said I could get it from Interlibrary Borrowing Service in Suzzallo. Bad news: IBS has limited hours. The sign on the door says to go to the reference desk on the ground floor.

Good news: I went. I explain which volume I need. The reference librarian says it's easy to get an article--what's the title? Bad news: I haven't the slightest idea. All I remember is I need the March 1996 issue. Good news: Librarians have magical powers and like to help people. (We're getting to the information part here.)

The library has a new service called Current Contents Search which lists the contents, 1996 only so far, of every journal in the Social Science Citation Index. You can get to it through UWIN (Libraries, Library Databases, Social Sciences, Current Contents). UWIN lets you browse the contents of 1996 journals and grab citations and abstracts.

Back to the story here. So we found the article I wanted. The librarian takes me over to Netscape and shows me how to make an on-line request. (The library will get books and articles that aren't in the library holdings at no charge.)

Browse to http://www.lib.washington.edu. Click on Interactive Requests and Specialized Services and then on Interlibrary Borrowing Services Forms.

Good news: By the time I got back to my office I had e-mail saying the library was getting the articles. Bad news: Being a member of the faculty, I didn't have the wit to ask the librarian's name so I could thank her here by name.*

From the Editor:

We are reprinting the above testimonial from the Department of Economics Newsletter for October 7, 1996, with the kind permission of the author, in order to demonstrate the value of a new database available campus-wide.

Current Contents Search reproduces the tables of contents of recent issues of not only those journals indexed by Social Sciences Citation Index, but also those indexed by Science Citation Index and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. It covers more than 7,000 journals and 1,700 books relating to the life sciences, clinical medicine, agriculture and the environment, the physical sciences, engineering and technology, the social and behavioral sciences, and the arts and humanities--truly an interdisciplinary database.

You may search the database by keyword or author, or browse through specific journal issues to keep yourself up-to-date. You can then decide whether a trip to the library is necessary. Most records include abstracts. The Libraries is presently working on a current awareness alert system that will send you e-mail notification of new publications listed in Current Contents Search based on your profile.

The best part of all this is that you don't need to leave home to find it. Current Contents Search is one of the UW Libraries databases found through terminals in campus libraries, or via UWIN or the UW home page. Try it out. And we thank Dick Startz for his kind testimonial.

*P.S. A little investigation provided us with the name of Dick Startz' mystery librarian. She is Nancy Huling, reference and research services in Suzzallo.