: I very much enjoy reading both yours and Nikhil's postings on these sorts of topics.Thank you. I enjoy being able to spout off on obscure trivia and look like I'm actually kind of clever, and not a complete idiot! ;-)
: Trouble is...how the devil can someone read such papers as:
: Jane E. Buikstra and James H. Mielke. "Demography, Diet, and Health." In The Analysis of Prehistoric Diets, R. I. Gilbert and J. H. Mielke, eds., Academic Press, pp. 359-422 (1985).
: ...without being either Rich or connected with some university?
If you don't wish to, or can't afford to subscribe to journals, there are several low cost (mostly free) ways to get access to academic literature.
First, many public libraries have these types of books and journals already, and most of those that don't can easily borrow them from those that do. Many universities have agreements with public libraries to lend them specialized books and journals like these. In addition, if there is a university library in your area, it is quite acceptable for you to walk in, find the book or journal you want and sit and read it, even if you're not a student, staff, or faculty. These days, almost all libraries also have photocopiers and, in the U.S. it is perfectly legal to copy almost any literature for your personal edification (as long as you don't intend to profit, financially, from posession of the copy) and take it home to read at your leisure. Lately, many journals have been going online, so it's often possible to view articles (or at least abstracts of them) without leaving home. Academic Press' Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, for instance, now makes abstracts of recent articles available to the internet-using public at no charge.
Finally, most academics, in my experience, are not only willing, but actually eager, to share their findings with the public. (I get quite exstatic when one of my students actually expresses an interest in my work, frankly!) If you hear of an article that looks interesting, do a search on the web to see if you can find the author's e-mail address. There's a very good chance that s/he will be happy to discuss the article, and maybe even mail you a copy.
The only reason most folks don't get access to recent research is that they don't try, or they don't know how. Hopefully this response will, in some small way, help to rectify this problem. Good luck.
-Floyd
None.
