Periodical articles. Titles of periodicals held by a library appear in its catalog, but the titles of individual articles do not. To find the contents of periodicals, you will need to use an index source.

periodical indexes. Periodical indexes are databases or print volumes that hold information about articles published in newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals. Different indexes cover different groups of periodicals. Ask a reference librarian for guidance about the most relevant index for your topic.

General indexes of periodicals list articles from general-interest magazines (such as Time or Newsweek), newspapers, or a combination of these. General indexes usually provide current sources on a topic, but you may need to look further for more in-depth articles.

Many disciplines have specialized indexes and abstracts to help researchers find detailed information. To use these resources most efficiently, ask a reference librarian for help.

Some electronic periodical indexes offer the full text of articles, and some offer abstracts (short summaries) of the articles. Be sure not to confuse an abstract with a complete article. Full-text databases can be extremely convenient—you can read and print out articles directly from the computer, without the extra step of tracking down the periodical in question. However, don’t limit yourself to full-text databases, which may not include the sources that would benefit your research most. Databases that offer abstracts give you an overview of the article’s contents, which can help you decide whether you need to spend time finding and reading the full text.

To locate an indexed article that seems promising for your research project, you can check the library catalog to see whether the periodical is available electronically and, if so, whether your library has access to it. Using the library computer network for access can help you avoid paying to view the text of an article that is available online only for subscribers or for a fee.

If the periodical is not available electronically (some scholarly journals, for example, are not), the library catalog also will tell you whether a print version is available in your library’s periodicals room. This room probably has recent issues of hundreds or even thousands of newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals, and it may also contain bound volumes of past issues and microfilm copies of older newspapers.