in two years i have never yet had to go into the periodical stacks at widener, because harvard libraries have online subscriptions to just about every journal, and i can easily print out what i need at home. moreover it was marked, on my reading list, as being available online, so when on saturday morning poor minzhi tried to pull luke demaitre's article on medical education at montpellier off the journal of the history of medicine and allied science, she was amazed to be told that, even when logged in with an institutional license, she had to pay for the article, which of course she refuses on principle. this necessitates a trip to widener on sunday in search of the volume. to her great astonishment, the particular volume shows up on hollis as having been checked out. impossible, says the reference librarian at the periodicals room. periodicals are for in-library use only! then she peers at the screen again. that's an impossible checkout date! (09/09/09.) even faculty can't have it for longer than 6 months at once. go and see the big guys at the reference desk, they'll help you. reference desk librarians: ooh that's funny. but someone may have checked it out to their carrel. try circulation, they'll help you. i go to circulation where i am told that since there is a request link by the entry, i'll just have to do it the normal way and recall it. but it's too late! i need it by tomorrow! and besides, we don't even know if some person's got it! if any sententious ass (that would mean you, von! i can feel that question coming.) asks me why i have to wait till the last minute for everything i will be very angry. the article is only about 15 pages long, and sunday noon is not too late to read and summarise an article for a class that meets at 4 on monday afternoon. i had heaps of other work to be getting on with. so i gave the mysterious history of science library a shot, no one seems to have heard of a room 91, and when i did find a room 90 and gave the handle a vigorous shake it was locked fast. very unhappy, i rush up to the third floor where i was quite ready to pour out my woes to any english department comrade i might find in child library, but found that door locked as well. deprived of shoulders to weep on (but child library is always open on sundays! english majors read every day of the week!) and unable to recruit a bolder person to argue with librarians on my behalf, i decide to try the history of science department. i might get hold of a grad student who can tell me where the library is, and if i worked my feminine wiles someone might come back to widener with me and swipe me in. in this i was not successful either,, because entry to the hist of science department was by card access too. the only library left to try was countway. i think about it and decide it's not worth going into boston for that. i write to my professor and class at large. no reply eight hours later, i decide i'll just have to buy the darned thing. i come home and try to do so - this website turns out to be the most fiddly one i've ever had the misfortune to try to use and an hour later having registrated and done a dozen things i still can't get to the page for pay-per-article. at this point i have a minor nervous breakdown and write to my class again. if tomorrow i find out that one of the people in class have got that volume out of the library there will be blood shed.