Finding Journal Articles
Example Questions That Can Be Answered Using This FAQ
- I need an article that appeared in the Journal of Fluid Dynamics in 1970.
- How do I find articles about the Iran-contra scandal?
There are many variations on this question. Our patrons ask us whether a particular article is available online, whether a particular journal is online, or sometimes whether we can send them complete articles on a particular subject.
Here’s the story:
The Internet is not (yet) a very good place to find journal articles in full text. Some journals and magazines have made some selected articles from their publications available in full text; one example of this is The Atlantic Monthly, which allows free online access to articles published from Nov. 1995 to the present. And there are a few journals that exist predominantly online, such as the Journal of Postmodern Culture.
If you’re looking for articles from a specific journal, look for the journal or magazine in the IPL’s Serials Collection, or through Publist (an online directory of over 150,000 publications which also includes links to web sites, when available), or try typing the journal’s title as keywords in a search engine such as Google. If you don’t find anything useful, the journal almost certainly does not have an online presence. Also remember that even in cases where a journal has an online presence, articles more than a few years old are unlikely to be available online.
Another option for finding articles online is to use BNET, a searchable database of full-text articles from over 300 reputable magazines and journals.
Still can’t find what you need? That’s probably because most journals are published by companies who are not interested in giving away their content for free over the web and/or the articles are simply too old to be available in any format other than print or microfilm. In situations like these, your local public or college library will be best able to help you.
There, you can find citations for articles on particular topics by searching an index such as the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature. You may also find that they have subscriptions to full-text magazine and journal article databases that you could access from home using your library card or a special login and password. Ask one of the librarians to tell you what’s available. If your library doesn’t have the specific article(s) you need, ask about whether they offer an "Interlibrary Loan" service that could help you get copies the articles from another library that does.
Not sure how to find your library’s web site? There’s a good list of library web sites available at LibWeb that you can use to help you find it. This online directory of libraries offers public, academic and special library listings for the United States and the world.
Don’t have a local library? Well, there are a number of "Document Delivery" services happy to find articles for you and deliver them to you electronically or through postal mail. See DocDel.net for a comprehensive directory of such services.
You may also want to read the IPL FAQ on Literary Criticism for additional ideas.
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