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I am trying to replicate a certain paper, which derived an important formula based on five other papers.

In order to do a correct replication with insight into sources of error, I need to gather all five papers. However, ALL the methods I have used have resulted in nothing.

A typical answer would be "ask your librarian" or "ask the authors," however my librarian is famously incompetent (can't even speak English, and given the exact bibliographical data, found a completely irrelevant paper), and also it is realistic to assume all the authors are dead.

Now, in my replication work I have to say something like "I cannot estimate the source of error, because the original papers are lost."

How should I do this? I checked Academia StackExchange, but the closest search result asks about phrasing negative search results for papers on a particular topic, whereas I am sure that the papers exist. There is also this question about how to continue my literature search, but I am asking about how to proceed if the search fails.

user46147
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    How old are these papers? – Azor Ahai -him- Jul 18 '22 at 15:56
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    So, to clarify... 1) You have a paper in your hand. 2) This paper contains citations to five papers you would like to find. 3) You cannot find any of these five papers. Is that correct? – Bryan Krause Jul 18 '22 at 15:57
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    Could you be more explicit about your problem? Are the 5 papers cited in the paper you have? If so, is your difficulty in determining what journal(s) are intended due to the use of (now) non-standard journal abbreviations/names (example), is your difficulty in finding a hardcopy in your university library or a digitized copy on the internet (e.g. as far as I know, this once fairly well-known journal is still not digitally available), or something else? – Dave L Renfro Jul 18 '22 at 16:30
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    Can you clarify why the "closest search result" you linked is not applicable in your case? It seems identical to me, if you're asking about how to phrase the negative search results. If you're asking about how to continue the search, our canonical question is this one. – cag51 Jul 18 '22 at 17:07
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    @cag51 I think the difference with the other one is that the other is talking about hypothetically existing papers that the authors can't find, so they presume they do not exist but cannot be sure of this however systematic they've been. In this case, it seems that the authors know the other papers exist because someone else has referenced them, but the authors are unable to access the full text of those papers for some reason. – Bryan Krause Jul 18 '22 at 17:24
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    Ah, you are right of course. I added this clarification to the post. – cag51 Jul 18 '22 at 17:38
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    @cag51 I think your edits made the question more suitable for this site, but also different from OP's actual situation. OP's situation is that he/she needs to look harder! It is not even clear if he/she has actually asked "my librarian." And if all local librarians are useless, you can try the Library of Congress or some other way. – Oliver882 Jul 18 '22 at 18:10
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    @Oliver882 - perhaps, but if the question is "how do I find the paper?" then it is a duplicate of our canonical question. That said, I agree that the answer to this question will probably involve detailing a painstaking and meticulous search, which has not yet been conducted. – cag51 Jul 18 '22 at 18:29
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    I'm not sure why you defer to an "incompetent" librarian. There are a lot of libraries and librarians in the world. A query to a major academic or governmental library might help you find an existing paper. If the publisher is known from the reference, have you contacted them? If you can discover the affiliation of an author you can write to that institution, its department or its library. I fear you have given up too easily. – Buffy Jul 18 '22 at 18:42
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    @user46147 In scholarly writing you cannot state that "the original papers are lost" until you have done a really painstaking and thorough search. Saying they are "lost" means they are lost to humanity, like some manuscripts from hundreds of years ago. – Oliver882 Jul 18 '22 at 18:56
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    In the case of a genuinely lost reference you could of course say so. "The last known copy was lost in the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria" would certainly be acceptable if true. But like others have said, in your case the real solution may be to find a competent librarian. – Anyon Jul 18 '22 at 19:00
  • Regarding techniques you can try for locating copies of the papers, besides what @cage51 suggested see the answers and comments to Should I cite an article that I can't find? Also possibly relevant is How to cite a thesis/paper when it's not available online?. – Dave L Renfro Jul 18 '22 at 20:08
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    I agree with @Buffy here. Your lack of access of a source doesn't excuse you. I can't go to a remote location with a terrible librarian and try to publish the standard model or the photoelectric effect citing that I don't have access to the original papers. – Ander Biguri Jul 19 '22 at 09:04
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    Even if you do a more exhaustive search with other libraries and still cannot find it, a better wording would be to say you are "unable to locate the source" rather than saying it is "lost". It's likely that someone still has the paper somewhere. – David K Jul 19 '22 at 11:45
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    @user46147 Asking for advice on this site gets you access to thousands of years of combined experience. If everyone is telling you something different than the couple English words of phrasing you were initially looking for, it would probably be wise to consider that, too, and not react that way to the free advice. It's not given to cause you trouble, but because people want to help and don't want you to leave here with information that will hurt more than help. – Bryan Krause Jul 19 '22 at 14:24
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    In the 21st century, I'd consider it a shortcoming of the author if I saw anything along the lines of "unable to locate the source" in an academic environment. If a student brought me a manuscript like that, I would certainly challenge the student. You'll likely encounter issues from referees. It would be a little different if you were in a resource-challenged part of the world, and certainly if you were seeking some arcane tome and not an archived journal. – Scott Seidman Jul 19 '22 at 14:33
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    You also say in your question that you "need" to gather all five references to achieve your goals, so presumably not finding them is really a non-starter the way you've put it. – Scott Seidman Jul 19 '22 at 14:35
  • @Anyon (&all doing so) please stop sharing the moral judgement about the said librarian. We have only one side of the story here... – EarlGrey Jul 19 '22 at 14:36
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    I know it's not in the spirit of the site Q&A format, but I bet if OP disclosed what the citing paper is, and which five references from it they want, we could generate some leads on where to find them. – Daniel Hatton Jul 19 '22 at 16:49

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The answer is still "ask your librarian". You say your librarian is famously incompetent, but that shouldn't be disqualifying - you can still ask a different librarian. If your library only has one librarian, you can still ask a librarian from another library, or the publishers of the article if they're still around.

Don't underestimate the extent of what librarians have access to, e.g. the British Library has a copy of every single book ever published in the UK, comprising hundreds of millions of books, plus several hundred thousand journals. Someone will almost surely be able to find the articles for you.

Allure
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    Yes, it's really not fair to expect reviewers and readers of the paper to just accept that it's missing a big piece because the authors didn't like their librarian... It would be really embarrassing if the author writes that the paper is lost and a reviewer thinks uh, no it isn't, and finds it themself...what would that make them think about the quality of the rest of the manuscript? – Bryan Krause Jul 19 '22 at 04:42
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    Asking the publishers of the articles is a very good idea, might cost a bit, but they should definitely still have a copy – Hobbamok Jul 19 '22 at 11:08
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As a partial answer, you might need to cite secondary source.

For example, under APA style this is:

An indirect citation or secondary source is when the ideas of one author are published in another author’s text but you have not read or accessed the original author’s work.

Include both the original author and year and the author and year of the work where quote/idea was found in the in-text reference. Add "as cited in" before the author in the in-text reference. For example - (Harris, 2009, as cited in Lewis, 2019). In the reference list, provide the details of the work in which you found the quotation or idea.

However, this does not help you verify the original equations. Maybe look up more papers that cite the original papers?

Richard Erickson
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Just state exactly what the problem you encountered was and what you tried.

Something like

"an attempt was made to procure the paper by XYZ in order to estimate the error. Although database X, database, Y, and database Z, were searched, and the library services of ABC were consulted, we were unsucessful at obtaining a copy of this paper. Therefore, error analysis of the original paper could not be performed".

BTW, I wouldn't be so fast at assuming someone is incompetent. It sounds more like a lack of patience on your part.

Terry Price
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If you have a goal to reach and to reach that goal you rely on a single incompetent professional figure, I wonder if it is more incompetent that figure or the way you follow to get that goal accomplished.

As @Allure answered, there are more libraries to ask to. Write a nice email to some other libraries that are even tangentially involved in the topic or that share the authors affiliations. If I have to cite a paper from an author that performed some research at the University of Aganawawa, there is a non-zero probability that the library of the University of Aganawawa has some interests (and duties) in helping you find the results of that research.

EarlGrey
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    This seems to presume that one of the parties actually is incompetent. Perhaps one of them is, but we can't be sure of that, or even which one might actually be incompetent. – Jon Custer Jul 19 '22 at 14:38
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    @JonCuster Yes, absolutely, since one of the parties mentioned the other is incompetent, I am 100% sure at least one of the two is incompetent. I do not know which one – EarlGrey Jul 19 '22 at 14:39