Finding a paper by John von Neumann written in 1951

There's a 1951 article by John von Neumann, Various techniques used in connection with random digits, which I would really like to read. It is widely cited, but I can't seem to find an actual copy of the paper, be it free or paying.

Is there a general strategy to find copies of relatively old papers like this one?

EDIT: I've searched quite a lot before posting this question and fond the following reference:

Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards, Appl. Math. Series (1951), 3, 36-38

Unfortunately, my library doesn't have it, and it is not in NIST's online archive (neither at http://www.nist.gov/nvl/journal-of-research-past-issues.cfm nor at http://nistdigitalarchives.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/nistjournalofresearchbyvolume/collection/p13011coll6)


I ran into a similar problem recently, and my solution was to email the NIST archives and request the article be scanned and emailed.

I received an email with a pdf version, and now it has been recently added to Richard Arratia's list of hard to find papers. https://dornsifecms.usc.edu/richard-arratia-usc/hard-to-find-papers-i-admire/


One of the citations gives the bibliographic info,

von Neumann J, Various Techniques Used in Connection with Random Digits, Notes by G E Forsythe, National Bureau of Standards Applied Math Series, 12 (1951) pp 36-38. Reprinted in von Neumann's Collected Works, 5 (1963), Pergamon Press pp 768-770.

That should be enough information for any librarian to find you a copy.


I think this is the paper we are looking for: https://mcnp.lanl.gov/pdf_files/nbs_vonneumann.pdf