Periodicals and Periodical Indexes

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Periodicals and Periodical Indexes
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Periodicals

• What is a periodical anyway?
• A generic term of anything published periodically
• Includes
• Journals
• Magazines
• Newspapers

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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

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Periodicals

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

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Periodicals

• Magazines
• Are of popular interest
• Written for the general public
• Generally articles are not signed
• Usually contain glossy format with many ads and
  pictures
• Usually published weekly, bi-weekly or monthly
• Examples Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone

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Periodicals

• Trade Journals
• Restricted to the interests of a particular
  trade, industry or occupation
• Articles usually include news items, trends,
  descriptions of goods/products, and legislative
  activities
• Examples Architectural Record, Stores, Financial
  Executive

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Periodicals

• Scholarly Journals
• Are of interest to students and specialists in a
  particular field
• Articles usually give original research results
  and are written in scholarly/technical language
• Articles are written by experts in the field and
  contain footnotes and bibliographies

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Periodicals

• Scholarly Journals
• Are usually published monthly, bi-monthly or
  quarterly
• Graphics contain graphs and charts but seldom
  glossy pages or pictures
• Published by professional organizations
• Many are refereed or peer-reviewed
• Examples include Harvard Business Review.
  History of Education Quarterly

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Refereed or Peer-reviewed Journals

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

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Evaluation of Periodicals

• It is important to critically evaluate the
  sources you use.
• Some magazines or journals may have a particular
  focus, publisher or agency, or political bias.
• The reliability or bias of a particular magazine
  or journal can generally be checked through
  Magazines for Libraries Ref PN 4832 M34 2006

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Periodicals

• It is important to recognize how periodicals are
  cited.
• Periodicals will usually have a volume number,
  possibly an issue number, a date, and page
  numbers.
• Look for these items in this periodical citation
• Geary, Stacy. Tangible beauty. American
  Artist 66, no. 714 (Jan. 2002) p. 36-41

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Periodicals

• To locate a periodical article in our library
  catalog, you need to search the journal title
  not the author or title of the article
• To search for the previously mentioned article,
  you would need to make a journal title search
  for the title American Artist

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Location of Periodicals

• Current periodicals are located alphabetically on
  shelves in front of the Periodicals Desk
• Bound periodicals are shelved by LC call number
  on the first floor
• Here is a typical bound periodical number
• PER
• N1
• A243

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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

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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

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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

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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