A WorldCat success story

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of WorldCat, and one of the things I use it for in my spare time is compile lists of useful or interesting books that I need or have read. It's an incredibly diverse index of thousands of sources and enables me to find things I didn't even know existed simply by searching.

And now I have a success story.

One of the areas of my interest (in case you weren't aware) is NZ alternative music from the late 1970s onwards. Using WorldCat and searching generally for "New Zealand music" turned up the usual suspects (Dix, Churton, Chunn, Eggleton, Shute etc) and some things I hadn't even considered - theses.

When I saw this title in the search results I got a bit excited (hey, I'm a geek!) - Alternative Music in New Zealand, 1981-2001 Definitions, Comparisons and History. A thesis by Wade Ronald Churton, author of NZ punk book Have You Checked The Children?

Of course, WorldCat being what it is, I saw that the thesis was held at the University of Canterbury. I was thrilled that a thesis with such a title and author existed but a bit deflated at how hard it might be to get hold of a copy.

Without even looking at the University of Canterbury's website, I emailed the library and asked if there was any way that I could be sent a copy of the thesis, or if it could be scanned in, or if they had a digital copy, or if they could put me in touch with the author.

Basically I was groveling.

Expecting a short, cold reply (I know what some libraries are like), I actually got a reply within hours saying the following:

Our current practice is to scan theses and make them available in PDF format through our Digital Library: see the link under 'Theses' on this page: http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/home/unique.shtml

The thesis you require has not yet been scanned for the Digital Library, but this process has been initiated today. The standard processing time is two weeks.

Amazing! And, true to their word, a little under two weeks later I checked the website* and there it was. All 147 pages of it, scanned in, uploaded as a 40MB PDF, with bibliographical information attached. Once again, this all happened because I asked. The amount of awesome things that I've gotten simply through asking politely is endless. It's my best tip.

*Postscript: ten minutes ago I received an email from University of Canterbury's Library Information Service to tell me the thesis I had requested was now ready. What fantastic service!

So thanks to the University of Canterbury's catalogue, WorldCat's inclusion of said catalogue, and the University of Canterbury's digital thesis scheme, I now have what sounds like a fascinating thesis to read. And the cool bit? Instead of it just fulfilling my request, it's now already scanned in and online for the next person who looks for it.

If that person might be you, click here. Copyright information here.

Now to read the thing...