Periodicals and Periodical Indexes

1
Periodicals and Periodical Indexes

• By Janet Romine

2
Periodicals

• What the heck is a periodical anyway?
• A generic term for anything published
  periodically.
• Includes
• Journals
• Magazines
• Newspapers

3
Periodicals

• Why use periodicals as an information source?
• Periodicals are current
• Some subjects are too new to be published in book
  form
• Articles tend to be more specific and narrower in
  scope than a book

4
Periodicals

• When using periodicals as an information source
  it is important to understand the different
  types
• Scholarly Journals
• Magazines
• Trade Journals

5
Refereed or Peer-reviewed Journals

• Manuscripts are evaluated by at least one subject
  specialist in addition to the editor
• Use one of theses sources to check if a journal
  is refereed
• Magazines for Libraries
• Ulrichs International Periodical Directory

6
Periodical Indexes

• With the library subscribing to some 2000
  periodicals how do you find articles on a
  particular topic without looking through hundreds
  of periodicals?
• Use a periodical literature index

7
Periodical Indexes

• An index is a tool to find citations to articles
  on a particular topic.
• Indexes can be general (Readers Guide) or
  subject specific (Business Abstracts)
• They can be print or electronic

8
Print Indexes

• Pros
• easy to use - arranged alphabetically by subject
• coverage usually goes back beyond the last 10-20
  years
• Cons
• time consuming to go through each volume for
  several years
• cannot combine concepts

9
Electronic Indexes

• Pros
• fast, sometimes able to get full-text
• able to combine several concepts with keyword
  searching
• Cons
• bad technology days
• many do not cover items published 15 or more
  years ago

10
Next Step

• Once you have found a citation to a journal
  article with an index.
• Check JournalFinder to see if we have the journal
  in print or have access to full text.
• Do a Journal Title Search
• Do not search for the title of the article