Every year, millions of requests for content are placed by researchers using CCC’s document delivery service. The vast majority of items requested are made available to researchers in seconds, but there are times when researchers require content that isn’t so readily available.
That’s where the CCC Advanced Research Services (ARS) team steps in to help. The ARS team is made up of 20 specialists, including qualified librarians and expert citation researchers, who work around the clock to source and clear documents for customers across the world. After 35 years of offering advanced referencing services, and with a collective experience of over 142 years, the members of the ARS team are adept at searching to the “ends of the earth” for the content and rights researchers need.
I’ve worked on the ARS team for 14 years, serving as its manager for the last six, so I’ve witnessed first-hand how resourceful my teammates are at unearthing difficult-to-find items. We all have a love of researching and solving mysteries, and we enjoy the challenge of putting our heads together to complete even the most challenging orders. We take pride in helping researchers save time in their search for content and making sure they don’t have to go without the insights and context that harder-to-source content can provide. Thanks in part to the efforts of the ARS team, CCC successfully fulfilled 99.995% of all requests placed in 2023, of which 98% were completed within 24 hours.
Of course, after decades of scouring the globe to fulfill content requests, my teammates and I have collected our fair share of memorable success stories. Below, we’ve shared some first-hand anecdotes around tracking down especially hard-to-find content for our customers.
Circle of (Conference) Life
“Many years ago, in the early days of document delivery, I received a request for a paper from a conference. Not much was online at that time, and I could not get a response from the sponsoring organization.
I was able to locate a contact email for the author and reached out directly. I received a copy of the paper from the author and supplied it to the client. After doing so, I reviewed the requester’s name and it hit me—the author I had received the paper from was the same person listed as the requester on the document delivery order!”
- By A.T., ARS team member for 30 years
Journal 2.0
“I once received an order from a client requesting an article published around 1980. After some research, I discovered that the publisher was still active, so I reached out to them to obtain the article and the necessary permissions. Initially, they responded by saying that the journal in question wasn’t part of their publications.
I continued my investigation and found out that the journal was actually an earlier version of a journal the publisher currently produces. I presented this information to the publisher, who then managed to recall the title. Ultimately, they granted us permission to copy the article from a print source, and we filled the order.”
- By P.C., ARS team member for 5 years
Are You Real?
“Several years ago, I reached out to a small magazine to obtain an article. The author of the article also happened to be involved with the magazine, possibly being its editor. The next day, the author called me, which rarely happens. He had never heard of CCC, had already visited our website, and was now calling to confirm that we were real!
The author was a bit confused because he thought that we were trying to purchase his intellectual property rights; as in, he would no longer own the copyright. I had a nice conversation with him and explained what the client wanted the article for and what we would do with it. Once he understood, he granted permission and later emailed a copy of the article for free.”
- By K.A., ARS team member for 10 years
Attention to Detail
“I worked with a client who was looking for an abstract from a Japanese conference. They provided a citation translated into English, but our only supplier providing Japanese documents couldn’t find a match for it and cancelled our order.
Not yet ready to give up, I looked closely into the Japanese society organizing the conference. I noticed that the annual meeting they were holding that year had a very different number than the one mentioned in the client’s citation (the 27th vs the 9th), and I couldn’t locate any similarly named society that fit the criteria.
After intense research, I discovered that there was a 9th annual meeting of a study group, part of the specified society, held in the same year. I provided the new details to our vendor, and they were able to obtain the document for our client.”
- By A.F., ARS team member for 3 years
Found in Translation
“The most memorable experiences I have all involve a customer providing a title and author information. When fulfilling orders like these, you would think it would take no time at all to complete the request.
Unfortunately, in some of these situations, no amount of searching yields the requested document. That’s when I get creative and think about the authors and their likely place of origin, which may not be the U.S. or other Western countries.
After translating the title into the language of the author’s most likely place of origin, I am often able to locate a near exact match to the content the customer has requested.”
- By N.C., ARS team member for 8 years
When Finding the Content Is Just the Beginning
“I received a request for a dissertation written in 2006 by a student who had attended KU Leuven in Belgium. I located the author’s email address and reached out to her twice. When she replied, she requested additional information, specifically the name of the end user and how her dissertation would be used. After I provided the author with the information requested, she granted permission for us to obtain a PDF copy of her dissertation from the university.
I located the dissertation’s call number in the library catalog and contacted the library via an online ILL form, in which I informed them that we had written permission from the author to obtain a copy of her dissertation.
When the library replied, they said they could provide us with the scan we needed, that it would cost 20 euros via bank transfer, and that it would take up to two weeks for them to supply it. After receiving client approval, I informed the library that we would proceed with the purchase.
The library sent the PDF of the dissertation in advance so we could fill our order. They then sent us a customer information sheet to complete prior to issuing the invoice. After I submitted the customer information sheet, it took multiple attempts to get a correctly completed invoice from the library, at which point I sent a bank transfer request to our finance department, and then, once ready, I sent payment confirmation to the library.
It may have required many, many more steps than expected, but at long last I was able to complete the request for our client!”
- By A.G., ARS team member for 10 years
(Not Quite) Closed for Business
“About 9 years ago, we received a fair number of requests for content from a publication that had recently gone out of business, with a website that was no longer active. Orders were coming in from several different clients, so we investigated further by using the Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive to find the contact details that had been archived.
We then used some public records about the company found through Google searches and were able, through multiple emails and phone calls, to connect with the proper rightsholder of the publication.
At first, we just sent each request to the rightsholder, but ultimately, she allowed us to go out to library sources to get the content a little more easily on our own. This agreement with her is still active today, meaning we can fill requests for that content without having to go through the same process every time.”
- By A.T., ARS team member for 30 years