A colleague asked me to locate the following paper on the web:


Kovalenko, I.N.: On the reconstruction of an additive type of distribution based upon a sequence of independent trials.  

Memoirs of the All-Union Conference on Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics, Erevan 1958.


After a few failed attempts, I asked myself, how would I go about locating this paper in the REAL (not virtual) world? What library stocks proceedings of the All-Union Conference... in Erevan, from 1958?


Then it occurred to me that of course, the paper had to be in Russian. Being a Russian speaker, it wasn't too difficult to recover the original title:
Коваленко И.Н., О восстановлении аддитивного типа распределения по последовательной серии независимых испытаний, Труды Всесоюзн. Совещания по теор. вероятн. и матем. стат., Ереван, 1958, Изд-во АН АрмССР, Ереван,1960.


So if any Russian-based readers out there have access to this archive, I would very much appreciate a PDF of this paper.


But I am more interested in the process. How does a researcher go about locating such things?



How to locate an obscure paper?
University of Yerevan has a copy (<http://89.249.207.20/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=156826&query_desc=kw%2Cwrdl%3A%20%D0%A1%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%89%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F%20%D0%BF%D0%BE%20%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BE%D1%80.%20%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%BD.%20%D0%B8%20%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BC.%20%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82>), and you can obtain a copy from them for a fee.


Contact their librarian directly (mirzoyan@ysu.am). I don't know at this stage in history whether English or Russian is the preferred international language of Armenian librarians, but you are clearly fluent in both.


