Dear Answer Person,
I’ve heard that there was a very obscure film inspired by the song “Alice’s Restaurant” of the same name. Do you know anything about this or where I can find it?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: The record came out in 1967. The United Artists movie was released in 1968/9, and first appeared on the VHS market in 1984. The screenplay was written by Venable Herndon and Arthur Penn (we have a couple of copies at Lilly Library, at 792.937 H558A); Penn was also the director. Arlo starred in the movie, along with Pat Quinn, Tia Chen, James Broderick and M. Emmet Walsh. You can find details at several websites, including http://us.imdb.com/ and http://arlo.net/(!).

We don’t have the VHS (they do have it at UNC-CH, the Durham County Library and Durham Tech!), but you should be able to get it through ILL. It is also available for purchase through the usual gang of marketers.

Dear Answer Person,
What is the best way to scratch a glass bottle or vase?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: With a diamond. Actually, almost anything sharp and hard will do, but a diamond does it with class.

I’ve heard lots of rumors about tunnels at Duke University. What is the purpose of these tunnels? Who built them? Are there tunnels underneath both East and West Campuses? How do you get into them?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: You have heard of how there is a whole world underneath Disney World, from which the staff magically emerge as the magical characters? Perhaps this is where star basketball players, distinguished faculty and the Dancing Devils reside in their off hours? Actually, they are merely the campus “basements,” where a lot of mechanical equipment and pipes and conduits (that in a way do help to keep Duke a magical place) reside.

As to how to get there, heed the warning cited in the Perkins Lobby edition (3010C) of the Suggestion Book:

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS/ENTRY
Access to roofs, ledges, attic space, tunnels, or other unauthorized areas is forbidden. [http://deanofstudents.studentaffairs.duke.edu/policies.html]

I understand the need for certain controls on the computers to the left of the reference desk (both the stand-up and seated stations). But some of the restrictions make researching on them a pain.

First of all, not being able to right-click on links to open them in a new window is very inconvenient because, most of the time, you are working from a long list of citations. So as not to lose your place or even the page altogether, you want to open a certain item in a different window. But the administrative settings on the computers won’t allow this.

So, to circumvent, you can try to go to the File menu and open a new window manually. But that option is also turned off by administrators. So, you can just open a new IE session – but it still doesn’t help because you can’t even right-click on the cite or web address to copy it to the new IE session.

It really is prohibitive and slows down the research process. Furthermore, some research pages are set as forms, so if you hit “Back” after a certain amount of time, you can’t bring back up the search results.

Lastly, several of the web databases try to open results in a new window. In Academic Index, there is even an option to search the Duke Library for the cite you’ve found. But neither of these works because the administrative settings won’t allow a new window to open. So a convenience tool that Academic Index has provided is utterly useless when using it from Perkins.

Please lessen the severity of the administrative settings on these computers. I understand the need for security, but just instituting a blanket restriction makes this more difficult for those using the library. Allow the right-click menu, allow the File menu option to open a new window and please allow IE to open links in a new window if the page asks for it.

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: The open new window option should be working on the library computers. If it isn’t, Systems Support needs to know which ones are not set correctly. Let the Reference Staff know where you have encountered the problem, and they will notify Systems Support.

Thanx!

Update 3/20/03: The machines have been fixed, but right clicking is still not an option–too many administrative & security issues at this point.

dear answer person,

usually i choose to ask you burning questions which have a deep impact on my understanding of the world, but this time it’s just a plain old complaint. about 2/3 of the time i try to access the duke catalog online, it fails to load, and i am left demoralized, frustrated, and downright angry. why is it that the catalog, which i would imagine is the library’s most valuable resource, is so often inaccessible over the internet?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Answer Person feels your pain, but knows not your ISP. AP seldom trouble getting into the online catalog from off campus, but all who are cursed with dial-up AOL accounts have been known to curse the slow response time, unable to handle the elegance and depth of the Duke Online Catalog (or GoDuke.com). Please consult with the Information Access Gurus at the Reference Desk; they will also feel your pain–they should be able to help ease it as well.

Why is it that patrons of the medical center library have to pay $5 for every interlibrary loan, when I can go over to Perkins and get them for free? Does it really cost $5 to copy and mail a 10-page article (average) here? Seems like the library could be making a good profit on those!

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Answer Person can assure you that the Medical Center Library is not planning trips to the Caribbean with your ILL money. As they explain the situation, “Sounds like a good deal for the Medical Center Library doesn’t it? But national studies of ILL costs have shown that obtaining one interlibrary loan can cost well over $20 in staff time and other expenses for the local library. Even copying from our local collections runs well over $10 per article when you consider staff time, equipment, supplies and other costs. The funding models for Perkins and Medical Center Library are different since our budgets come from different sources and have separate administrative reporting lines. While Perkins has funding to subsidize the full cost of loans, the Medical Center Library has always had to generate revenues to cover at least a portion of its expenses for staff, equipment and our collection. Up to now MCL has subsidized a large portion of the fees charged by other libraries for photocopies and loans to Duke patrons. The really bad news is that due to budget cuts MCL will no longer be able to cover these expenses. While MCL will not charge the full cost of staff time and equipment, patrons will have to pay the full fee charged by lending libraries. As of July 1, MCL fees will probably be $11 per item, the standard national fee for health sciences libraries, for interlibrary loans.”

I suggest that the med center library stop using OVID for online subscriptions for journals. The database is terrible to search in, and doesn’t give PDF files- right now I am looking in the database for a paper that came out this month in Diabetes, but it doesn’t show up in OVID online!

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: The Medical Center Library responds:

The easy answer would be that the Medical Center Library loves to torture its patrons and increase its print income by making everyone print HTML files! But to really answer this we have to wander through the complexities of purchasing electronic full-text journals and what libraries must accept in order to obtain access to certain titles. As you read through this you also have to remember that the publisher still has the ultimate control over the format, date of release and the platform used for their titles. The library rarely has a say over any of these. First, it is difficult to eliminate all the journals on the Ovid system since many of the electronic titles are only available through the Ovid system. When possible, we have moved journals to other vendors, but for most of the remaining titles we do not have any other choice if we want the title in electronic format. Publishers also dictate to Ovid (and other distributors) the format and release date of the electronic version. Many publishers have not moved to PDF files due to concerns over controlling the sharing of PDF files and their copyright rights. Others still do not have the technology to offer the articles in another format. Many libraries have told Ovid they prefer the PDF format, but the publishers make the final decision. Remember Ovid does not own the content; they lease the right to make it available on their system. In addition, some publishers embargo the latest issue of a journal and do not release it to Ovid or any other vendor for several days, weeks or months–they want their print subscribers to receive it first. Even if they do not embargo it, Ovid has to wait to receive the article and then post it. Unfortunately publishers are not punctual about delivering content. These are some possible and fairly typical reasons why the issue of Diabetes was not online as quickly as you expected it. Finally, the interface is clunkier than some because you are searching through publications from several different publishers, instead of just one publisher, as in the case of Science Direct. Ovid has had to create an interface to accommodate many competing titles. Ovid also has to authenticate who has access to each title which makes their interface issues more complex than the collections where we have no choice but to buy it all. The advantage to Ovid is that the Library can buy only the titles it wants, but the search engine is less elegant. That is also why we recommend users begin their searches directly with MEDLINE, which has direct links to specific articles, and not through individual journal titles.

I suggest you purchase Greece, the Next 300 Years at

www.GreekFuture.com

Thanks

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: I suggest you read the “Notice to members of the Duke community: Please make acquisitions suggestions at Consider purchasing this material for Perkins Library collections” on the Suggestion Book home page. Tells you how to suggest a purchase–and lets us know who to notify when it arrives.

The home page also has “Notice to publishers, booksellers, etc.: Please do not use the Suggestion Book for marketing your products,” so we wouldn’t have, for example, the author or publisher of “Greece” trying to use this as a way to sell the book. That wouldn’t be a good way to convince Collection Development to make the purchase–and it really, really irks Answer Person.

I just wanted to thank Tom Wall for his help dealing with an extremely frustrated Perkins user (namely, me). He calmed me down by being courteous, polite, and helpful throughout the whole transaction–and best of all, he helped me find an item that I could not locate.

THANKS!

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: What a nice experience–and how thoughtful of you to pass on the comment. Answer Person will make sure Tom hears about this.

There is a placard on the chapel quad stating a specific purpose for the university. How did it get there, and why has it not been removed so far?
Cheers

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: When Duke University was established with the Duke Endowment in 1924, the charter of Trinity College (last amended in 1903) was rewritten–or at least the name of the institution. The plaque, given to the University in 1942 by the Order of Red Friars, a campus honorary society, contains the text as it appears as Article 1, AIMS, of the University Bylaws:

The aims of Duke University (“University”) are to assert a faith in the eternal union of knowledge and religion set forth in the teachings and character of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; to advance learning in all lines of truth; to defend scholarship against all false notions and ideals; to develop a Christian love of freedom and truth; to promote a sincere spirit of tolerance; to discourage all partisan and sectarian strife; and to render the largest permanent service to the individual, the state, the nation, and the church. Unto these ends shall the affairs of this University always be administered.

The Bylaws were last revised 5/21/2002, without any change to the AIMS.

So what you have there is a bit of history, not quite written in stone, but mounted in granite. Consider it an historical artifact, part of the heritage of this institution.

If you want to change the University Bylaws, you’ll have to take that up with the Board of Trustees.