From the previous readings in Lesson 3, you should be familiar with the various types of periodicals, the types of information you can expect to find in periodicals, and the difference between popular magazines and scholarly journals. Now you're likely asking, "How do I locate articles on a specific topic or subject?" It would be almost impossible to find an article by just going to the Periodicals room in the library and starting to flip through each journal or magazine hoping to come across an appropriate article. Fortunately, there are tools to assist you in locating articles! The next section of readings for Lesson 3 will briefly explain these types of tools (Indexing and Abstracting Services) and then go on to explain how to search for your topic in an index or database. There is also a segment that will explain how to use a specific database in more detail.

You'll need to use one or more of the periodicals indexes to locate periodical material on your chosen topic. Using these indexes is similar to using the Library's catalog to locate books, maps or audiovisual material in the library. The indexes you need may be available on the computers in the reference area of the library. Indexes that are on the computer are referred to as "electronic databases." You may also use print indexes (in book form) or both of these types of tools.

Indexes and abstracting services indicate exactly where you can find articles on a given topic. It would be impossible to locate information in the thousands of journals, magazines and newspapers without using some such resource. Fortunately, there are companies, scholarly associations and other groups that create these resources for us. Each indexing/abstracting producer chooses which journals will be indexed and which will not. In other words, each index or database has its own "coverage." No index or database will give you everything there is in periodicals on your topic. Subject specific indexes cover in depth the published information in a specific area. PsycInfo, for example, covers the psychology literature. General indexes cover a wide variety of subject areas, but cover each specific subject area in lesser depth than a subject specific index would.

When a new issue of a periodical included in the database's coverage is published, the index/database producers analyze each article in that issue and choose subject heading words that best describe the contents of the article. This classification by subject allows you to get results when you enter a subject heading search in an electronic database or look up your topic in a print index or abstract. Remember the Library of Congress Subject Headings? Well, indexing and abstracting services often have their own controlled vocabularies, each developed by the producers of the given product. Similar to library catalog word searching, most electronic indexing/abstracting services also allow you to do keyword searching by directly matching words of your choice with words in citations and abstracts included in the database. As with using the library catalog to locate books, a keyword search for periodical articles is often the best initial search to do.

Both indexes and abstracts supply you with information to locate specific articles on your topic. Look up your subject words in a printed index, or look up your subject words or keywords in an electronic database, and you will find a list of citations for articles pertaining to your topic. The citations give enough information so you can locate the actual article: author(s), title of the article, title of the journal or magazine, volume number, issue number, date of the issue and page number(s). Citation information does't tell you a lot about the article. Look carefully at the title of the article for additional clues about its contents.

In addition to listing citations that tell you where to find particular articles, abstracting services provide "abstracts" or summaries of articles cited. Abstracts tell you more about individual articles than do citations; they can help you determine whether or not a given article will be truly useful for a given purpose.

For Assignment 3, you'll find looking over the Subject Guide to Library Databases to be a useful step in determining which online indexing and abstracting resources might be useful in researching your topic. By using the guide, you'll know where to begin when you come to the library to do your research.

Although some periodicals databases to which Reed Library subscribes indicate whether or not a particular article is available at Reed Library, many indexes and abstracting services don't indicate whether or not you can locate individual periodicals locally. To find out whether or not Reed Library has the periodical for which you are looking, look up the title of the periodical (not the article title) in TALON. Click on "Periodical Title" and type in the title of the magazine or journal your article is in. If Reed Library owns the title, the record for that journal will be displayed. However, check the information in the record carefully to see if the library owns the specific year or issue you require. If Reed Library does not own the title or issue you need to obtain an article, you can request the article from another library using Interlibrary Loan. See "When the Article You Need Isn't Here" in this Lesson of this online coursepack.