Been an interesting week. Today we had requests for some very unusual books. One was a book on Iraq. I did a search on ALEPH for the book. I did the search by both title and author. This book was not in SD. I then did an advanced search on WorldCat and found that only 5 libraries currently had this book for lending. In the end due to the interest in topics like the War in Iraq I did choose to buy the book instead, but I could have gotten it through WorldCAT. The book was Letters in the Sandbox.
Then another patron asked for The Road Back by Thomas McPherson Brown, MD. I first checked to see if it could be the state of SD. According to my search it could not. Then I went to WorldCat. Under the title and author I could not find the book. I then did a search with the author's name. I found that it was included in another book by a different author. It was availabe in 116 libraries. The top library was Carl Elliot Regional Library in AL. The way I clicked on it did not yield the results you asked for. It went to the library's home page. Sorry. I will try this again later. I clicked on the library of congress and got the following call number RC933 .S28 1993. The author has not written any other books.
OAIster--I was a little disappointed to see that the first thing that came up was about NORTH DAKOTA. BUt then I went on and clicked on the picture of the American Soldiers at Wounded Knee Massacre gathering up the bodies of the Native Americans. This could be used in a number of ways. I think this might be helpful for research.
My, Learning, you HAVE had an interesting week! Here are some clues: 1) Not many libraries have this title because it was self-published. You made a good choice to purchase it for your patron, as he/she may mention it to others and it could be a popular title at your library. 2) It's great that you understand that if one search doesn't work, try something else, and you did a good job of finding this. Here's another way: try looking this up with the entire title, using a title phrase search: The road back :
ReplyDeleterheumatoid arthritis--its cause and its treatment . This gets you to record accession # 17506121, and shows 455 owners. You are correct that no SD libraries own this title. 3) Yes, OAIster can be helpful for research and for finding images. Library work is so much fun because you never know what questions you will be asked! Thanks for your good work here and at your library!