meta-protocol analysis, or Gil mumbles something that the narrator cannot hear

A wise man once said, “blah, blah, blah so long as blah.” Truth is there are probably many pithy maxims to effect that you can’t always get what you want , but if you try sometimes… (Where is he going with this?) I have a technology story to tell, brave readers. One cold winter morning Gil set out to retrieve all of the assigned reading for S554. (belatedly invoke the muse) He logged in to his computer at work, logged in to his Google browser sync, and logged in to his course management software system. He then logged in to his Pandora radio account, email account, and his online banking account. It was payday. After those inevitable distractions, he sought out the course calendar on the syllabus to check the assigned reading. Two journal articles and one chapter from a required book were listed. Gil looks in his SLIS pile for the book, but remembers that it hasn’t arrived yet. To order this book he logged in to his account at half.com, entered the ISBN for the book he needed, selected a moderately priced copy in very good condition, entered his credit card number, 3 digit whatever number on the back of his credit card, verified his address, and clicked a button. To compensate for not having the book in hand, he resolved to read both journal articles thoroughly and critically so as to be prepared to provide noticeable insight and thus proof of completing said reading to the professor and classmates. Gil checks all the links on the left-hand side of the homepage for S554 and moves on empty-handed but unaffected. The first article does not show up after an article search by title in the citation linker. Gil’s used to such tricks, so he locates the link to Ebsco’s LISA database and proceeds with confidence. “Surely the article is here,” Gil mumbles in a voice only the narrator can hear. The article is there but not in full text. He pessimistically clicks the “find it” button with the expected result. He tries the WilsonWeb version of LISA with the identical result. In desperation and perturbance he enters the article title in the Google search box in the top, right-hand corner of his browser. He follows a link to sciencedirect.com that shows him an abstract of the article and offers to sell it to him for thirty bucks. Gil mumbles something that the narrator cannot hear. Gil begins to search by title. He’s not sure how, but somehow he ends up on the periodical title search of IUCAT. Apparently “Research Strategies” is available online through Wells library in Bloomington and the Schurz library at IUSB. He tries to access both with his log in but to no avail. Foolishly believing that surely there is a way to access this article online, Gil locates the number to the Schurz library reference desk and makes the call. The voice on the other end which Gil assumes is a competent employee informs him that this journal is not available online. “It’s available in print though,” she not so much says as musically intones.