Unit 10 Finding Periodical Articles Desired Outcomes Student understands when to use a periodical rather than a book Student understands the purpose of periodical indexes Student understands that a periodical index can be either electronic or print Student understands periodical indexes are often subject specific Student knows how to pick the appropriate index for a search Student understands how to search computerized databases (previous unit) Student can identify parts of a citation or record Student can print, download or email bibliographic information Student knows how to determine if the Meriam Library owns a journal Student knows how to locate the journal in the Meriam Library Student is familiar with Interlibrary Loan and how to get an article from another library Student knows where to go for help Orientation to University Life - Information Literacy Student Workbook 149
Introduction Any publication that is produced in regular, successive issues for an indefinite period of time is known as a periodical. Magazines and newspapers are the two most common forms of periodical publications. The terms periodicals, magazines and journals are used interchangeably, although journals are often used in reference to more scholarly publications. Periodical articles are important for research because they provide up-to-date information. When currency is important, using a periodical is essential. Newspapers and news magazines like Time or Newsweek will report the latest news. The newest findings in science are first reported in scientific journals. Periodical articles are also important for providing in depth coverage of narrow topics. Books tend to be broader in coverage, and of course, less concise. If your topic of research is very narrow or specific, or if you need something short due to time contraints, you should use a periodical. In addition, some information, such as book or movie reviews are only found in periodicals. To review, some of the reasons you would use periodicals for research are for: currency in depth coverage of narrow topics concise coverage of topics information not found in books (i.e. reviews) How to find periodical articles. Once you have determined that you need periodical articles how do you find them? There are well over 10,000 periodical titles currently being published. The Meriam Library subscribes to over 3500 of these titles. If each periodical title came out monthly, and had ten articles, you would need to look through over 35,000 articles every year in the Meriam Library alone to find an article you wanted. If you started looking through earlier years of articles, these numbers would double, triple, and so on. Obviously browsing is not a reasonable way to search for articles. To find periodical articles you need to use a periodical index. What is a periodical index? Periodical indexes contain citations or references to articles that have been published during a particular time period. They provide a way of managing and organizing periodical literature over large periods of time so that you can find what you need when you need it. Many periodical indexes are computerized, but there are still a number available only in printed format. Print periodical indexes are usually arranged by subject. Computerized indexes allow you to search by subject, author, title or keywords in the abstract, making them much more versatile than print indexes. Many computerized periodical indexes are also taking advantage of technology by including the fulltext of the article in addition to the citation. Some periodical indexes are multidisciplinary but most are specialized in a specific discipline. For example Education has its own index called ERIC. The company that creates ERIC subscribes to hundreds of journals all related to education. For every article a record is created that breaks the information about the article such as author, title and subject into separate searchable fields. The records are stored in a database. Libraries then purchase the database and the monthly or quarterly updates either in a paper or computerized format. 150
Figure 10-1. ERIC record. Indexes vs. Abstracts vs. Fulltext You may sometimes hear an index referred to as an abstract or full text database. The differences are as follows: A periodical index provides only the minimum amount of information necessary to find an article. This information is called a citation or a reference and includes the author and title of the article, the title of the periodical (often called the source) the volume and/or issue number of the periodical, the page number of the article and the date of the article. A periodical abstract provides all the above information plus a short summary or abstract of the article. A full-text database provides the text of the article on your computer. Most full-text databases are not yet providing graphics. Full-text databases also include the citation to the article and an abstract, if available. Many publishers are still reluctant to allow electronic full-text so you will find most databases provide only the citation or abstract. Orientation to University Life - Information Literacy Student Workbook 151
Print indexes Contrary to popular belief, all information is not yet available on a computer. Many periodical indexes are still available only in print. The printed indexes are located on the 2nd floor behind the Reference Desks. Most print periodical indexes are arranged by subject. To find an article you need to determine what subject heading the index uses. Many indexes contain See or See Also references that direct you from an invalid subject heading to a valid or related subject heading. Other indexes may have a thesaurus to help you pick your subject heading. Citations to articles on that subject will be listed below the subject heading. Unlike using a computerized index, you cannot combine subjects or keywords in a print index. If you were searching for information on how television violence affects children, you would have to decide which keyword to look under, violence, television or children. If you didn t find any relevant articles under one keyword, you would have to look under the next keyword to see if relevant articles are under that heading. Some printed indexes are arranged by a larger subject classification system with an alphabetical subject and author index in the back. To see how a particular index is arranged and to find out how to use it read the information at the front of the index. Computerized Indexes In Unit 8: Searching Computerized Databases most of the fundamentals of searching for periodicals in a computerized database were covered. As a review, when you are searching a computerized database you can search within a particular field, such as the author field, title field, or subject field, or you can choose to search in keyword which looks for words anywhere in the title, subject or abstract fields. Because the library has a number of different computerized indexes, all using different software, you may need to ask a librarian or read the help screens when using an index you are not familiar with. Computerized indexes have several advantages over print indexes. Some of the most important are the ability to combine words or phrases using the boolean operators, the ability to search multiple years with one search and more current updating. How to choose a periodical index. The most important step in finding a periodical article is to select the right periodical index(es). To access the periodical indexes available via the Library s ReSEARCH Station select Journal Resources from the ReSEARCH Station page. You can view the available databases alphabetically or select subject list to view them arranged by broad subject area. To view databases available only in the Library on the Local Library Network (LocalNet), as well as via the ReSEARCH Station, select All Databases from the ReSEARCH Station page. Also remember that there are many useful print indexes available in the Library. If you are not sure which index to use, a multidisciplinary periodical index like Expanded Academic Index is often a good place to start. If you were going to be doing an in-depth paper on a topic related to education such as classroom discipline, you would also want to use a subject specific periodical index such as ERIC, an education database. You will find that you frequently need to use more than one index to find the articles you need. If you are not sure which index(es) you need to use for your topic, check with a reference librarian or read the descriptions of the databases provided in library handouts. 152
Finding the article in the library. Once you identify the articles you need, how do you find them in the library? The first step is to make sure you have copied or printed all the information you need about the article. This includes the journal title, volume, year, and page number. It s a good idea to also include the title of the article, and the author. All this information will be necessary for your bibliography if you decide to use the article in your research paper. It is always easier to take down the information when you first find the article, then to go back and try to track the citation down again. When you have this information the next step is to determine whether or not the Meriam library owns the journal you need. To do this you need to check the Library Catalog. Limit your search to Journal Titles in the Library Catalog and search by the title of the journal NOT the title of the article. If our library owns the journal you will find a record in our library catalog. You need to write down the call number of the journal from this record. Once you have the call number check the location of the periodical. Is it on microfilm (mf) or in the periodical collection (per)? Also check the date. The most current year of most periodicals (and the current three months of newspapers) are usually found in the Periodical Reading Room on the 2nd floor of the library. Older issues are bound and shelved in the Periodical Stacks on the 2nd floor, or filmed and stored in the Microfilm Area on the 2nd floor. What happens when the periodical you need is not in this library? Sometimes the journal title or article you need is not in the Library. This could be because the Library does not subscribe to the journal, because the particular issue of a journal you need is at the bindery, or because somebody has cut the article out of the journal. When the Library does not have the journal you need, the easiest and fastest thing to do is to find another article we do have. It s always a good idea when doing research to find more articles than you think you ll need, just in case some of the articles you want are not available. Sometimes you will find that we don t seem to have any of the journals you need or that another article just won t do. When this happens you can use Interlibrary Loan to get photocopies of articles from another library. To use Interlibrary Loan you need to have at least two weeks of lead time. Start your research early, even if you don t plan to write the paper right away, so you can use Interlibrary Loan if you need to. If you don t have time to use Interlibrary Loan be aware that we have better coverage for some indexes than for others. For example the Library subscribes to over 72 percent of the journals covered in the Expanded Academic Index, but only 14 percent of the journals in Sport Discus. Therefore your chances of finding citations to articles in journals this library owns is much higher using Expanded Academic Index. Orientation to University Life - Information Literacy Student Workbook 153
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