Thread: A very difficult journal to find

I am writing my dissertation and the following article has come up several times as something which could be useful:

P. Elliott and H. Halberstam, A conjecture in prime number theory. Symp. Math., 4 (1968/9), pp. 59-72.

It has several citations, but nowhere can I find an electronic scan of the article, nor a website discussing the journal, nor even a physical copy that is somewhere nearby. Anyone have any tips for finding discontinued journals like these?

Originally Posted by Capillarian

I am writing my dissertation and the following article has come up several times as something which could be useful:

P. Elliott and H. Halberstam, A conjecture in prime number theory. Symp. Math., 4 (1968/9), pp. 59-72.

It has several citations, but nowhere can I find an electronic scan of the article, nor a website discussing the journal, nor even a physical copy that is somewhere nearby. Anyone have any tips for finding discontinued journals like these?

1) Your university's maths department must have a copy of that journal , or

2) In case it doesn't have it, it can get in contact with others universities to check which one has a copy.

3) Maths departments are usually subscribed to web services to access journals.

In the worst of all the cases, your thesis director may have to use some of its research budget to ask for a copy

from some other university. This is a standard fact and don't be shy of asking.

Tonio

Originally Posted by tonio

1) Your university's maths department must have a copy of that journal , or

2) In case it doesn't have it, it can get in contact with others universities to check which one has a copy.

3) Maths departments are usually subscribed to web services to access journals.

In the worst of all the cases, your thesis director may have to use some of its research budget to ask for a copy

from some other university. This is a standard fact and don't be shy of asking.

Tonio

Thanks a lot, I will run down that list and see what I find . It looks as though my maths department doesn't have it as I've searched the online resources and it is not mentioned. I'll ask my supervisor about it.

Originally Posted by Capillarian

I am writing my dissertation and the following article has come up several times as something which could be useful:

P. Elliott and H. Halberstam, A conjecture in prime number theory. Symp. Math., 4 (1968/9), pp. 59-72.

It has several citations, but nowhere can I find an electronic scan of the article, nor a website discussing the journal, nor even a physical copy that is somewhere nearby. Anyone have any tips for finding discontinued journals like these?

I came across a slightly more complete reference: PDTA Elliott and H Halberstam, A conjecture in prime number theory, Symposia Mathematica 4 INDAM, Rome, 59–72, Academic Press, London, 1968/69. See the references at the end of this article (pdf file).

It seems that Sympos. Math. was a series of monographs or maybe conference proceedings, not a journal, and that the earlier volumes were published by Academic Press. Later volumes were published by Cambridge University Press, and the series was discontinued in 2000 or thereabouts.

Not that that will necessarily help you to locate a copy, but it's always best to give librarians as complete a reference as possible, especially if they have to search for something on inter-library loan.