Getting Info On Foreign Journals

Factual Questions
1

I’m looking for info on a specific journal, Comptes Rendus des Seances de l’Academie des Sciences, Serie B: Sciences Physiques. Now my French is bad, but I’m thinking something along the lines of “Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences, Series B: Physical Sciences.” My problem is two-fold. One, the journal is in French, but I know some French speakers that I could probably get to read it and give me the gist. The second, bigger problem is that such a journal is not held by my college and is impossible to find in any way that I can easily get a hold of (a Google search, for example.) Yes, I know there is interlibrary loan, but by the time I get this request in and they actually find a copy, I’ll have graduated.

While it isn’t very important that I find this paper, it would be useful. I think I’ve accidentally duplicated something they did and I was hoping to find that they gave a picture of the complex in the paper. So unless a Doper happens to know about trifluoroacetic acid-tetrahydrofuran complexes, I’ve got to find this paper.

2

Over 11 hours later, and nobody’s biting on this?

I’ll bump you up for the Friday crowd, asterion, and make you an offer.

Whereas there was a time (a few years ago) that I would just have to walk less than 10 metres to find the accumulated CRSAS SerieB:SP journals, that’s no longer true. Every few weeks I make a trip to San Jose State University (which has recently built a new library in conjunction with the City of San Jose, in a collaboration that seems to be successful), and while there I hunt down various journal articles that have been building up on the back burner, but have not warranted journal subscriptions (or calling in favors from people with easy access to university libraries).

There are undoubtedly several Dopers who could easily find, scan, and e-mail you the paper in question, but they apparently either have not seen your OP, or felt that it was not something for which they wanted to extend themselves. [That’s OK; everyone’s busy. :)]

The first thing that you could do to help us is give us the journal reference (i.e. Authors, Year, Volume #, and page numbers if you have them). For my own purposes, it would help to know what your time crunch is. If it’s just within the next couple of weeks, it’s easier for me than if you want it by (say) Monday. Also, please let us know (as far as possible) what you want. If the article’s only a few pages, it’s easier to copy and e-mail you the whole thing, but if it’s a huge article it may be better if you let us know exactly what you want from it.

Obviously, I would rather that you be helped by a Doper with easy access to the journal, since for me it requires a ~30 mile round trip. However, if no-one else responds, I’ll step up (assuming the article is available in the SJSU library – they carry CRSAS SerieB:SP for certain periods, but it’s undergone some name changes over the years, and I’ll need details). I would be making the trip at some point soon anyway, and this will just make it sooner rather than later. I’d be happy to help you out.

I did my graduate work in a Government Laboratory in France, so I will be able to assist you with the text if you want. I know what trifluoroacetic acid and tetrahydrofuran are, for instance. At this point however, my Organic Chemistry is somewhat rustier than my French…