Finding Periodicals

There are a variety of resources available to you to for periodicals research. A few words of explanation:

a periodicals index contains basic information gleaned the article itself (e.g. Title, Author, Date of publication, Journal Title), plus one or more subject terms assigned by the indexer to describe the contents of the article. Articles assigned the same subject term are thus cross-referenced to each other. When you search in a periodicals index, you can generally search any indexed field, but not the contents of the articles. Examples include Legaltrac, the Index to Legal Periodicals, and Poole's Index to Periodicals Literature.

a full-text periodicals database contains the actual text of the article in addition to descriptive information. They may be arranged primarily to facilitate browsing (e.g. JSTOR), or they may provide enhanced search capabilities to allow you to perform complex searches (e.g. TP-ALL in Westlaw, or ALLREV in Lexis).

coverage is particularly important when dealing with periodicals databases. The two primary legal periodical databases, Legaltrac and the Index to Legal Periodicals, only provide coverage back to 1980! The Index to Legal Periodicals in print thankfully goes back to 1908. But also bear in mind that 1980 is the furthest back the index goes -- many individual publications are not indexed back to that date. If in doubt, always check.

Sample Search Strategy

Step 1: IDENTIFICATION

It is best to generally begin your search with the most appropriate index for your subject. For legal periodicals, this means: Index to Legal Periodicals and Books or Legaltrac.
For social sciences, use Web of Science, Social Science Abstracts, or the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN)
For political science, use _____
For health, medicine, or health care policy, use MEDLINE or CINAHL

Use these indices to identify relevant subject terms for your research. An index uses a pre-determined list of index terms to assign to articles, so by using keywords that describe your topic, you can zero in on the "proper" index terms. Subject terms provide cross-references between articles -- make use of this!!

Use your term or terms to search for articles within a specific time period, from a particular journal, or anywhere/everywhere. Use a combination of the article's title and its subject heading to determine whether it is relevant for your research.

Step 2: LOCATION

Once you have identified a list of articles that you wish to read, you have the somewhat less daunting task of finding them. For certain databases, a service called SFX will provide a link to a list of possible sources when you search the index. For others, there are a number of places you can look. Be aware that many journals (law and otherwise) are covered in multiple electronic collections, sometimes with a substantial coverage overlap.

Hein Online - provides .pdf image AND text for most University Law Reviews, all the way back to the beginning of the journal (in most cases), and up to 2-3 years of current.
JSTOR - provides .pdf image AND text for journals in the arts and humanities, all the way back to the beginning of the journal (in most cases), and up to 2-3 years of current.

Westlaw's TP-ALL database- provides text of University Law Reviews back to (1980s??)
Lexis' ALLREV database - provides text of University Law Reviews back to (1980s??)

Use MORRIS to determine whether we own the journal (note that electronic availability may be displayed in MORRIS as well)
Use Orbis to determine whether another Yale library owns the journal.