Library Research Skills

Periodical indexes

One of the best resources available from academic libraries, over the Web is the periodical index.

Periodical indexes allow you to search for citations to articles in popular magazines and scholarly journals. Sometimes these indexes have the complete or "full text" of articles as well. Indexes cover all sorts of subjects. If you start with a general index you will find articles about new trends, opinions, and information for the non-specialist. Periodical indexes are one of the best sources to use when writing a research paper.

Where do you find these indexes? Academic Libraries purchase some periodical indexes and allow their library community to use them over the Web.

Periodical indexes are one of the best places to find information because:

• you can access many of them through the Web
• they index information which has gone through an editorial review process
• they cover a variety of subjects
• they are structured for finding information more precisely
• they offer citations to the popular magazines and scholarly journals that have articles on your topic

Next Page - Popular and Scholarly Journals

Copyright (c) 2005 by Susan Kelly, Wexford County Library Service.
Adapted and modified (5th December 2005) from TILT, Texas Information Literacy Tutorial. This material is subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the TILT Open Publication Licence. (the latest version is presently available at http://tilt.lib.utsystem.edu/yourtilt/).