Find a Journal is a library tool that will tell you whether the library has full-text access to a specific journal (either electronically, in print, or via microfilm/microfiche), or to journals in a certain field or discipline.
- When do I use it?
People are most likely to use Find a Journal when they have either a citation for an article or the abstract of the article, but not the full text.
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A citation generally includes the author and title of the article, the name of the journal, magazine, or newspaper in which the article appeared and the date of publication.
- Here is an example of a bibliographic citation. Note the title of the journal is shown in boldface type:
| Felson, R. B., Ackerman, J., & Yeon, S. J. (2003). The infrequency of family violence. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65, 622-634. |
Now that I have the journal title, what do I do with it?
- Visit Find a Journal.
- Copy and paste or type in the title of the journal or magazine. In this example, you would enter Journal of Marriage and Family.
- If we have access to the journal, you'll see something like this:
These results tell you that we have access to the Journal of Marriage and Family in three different databases: Education Source, JSTOR, and SocINDEX. Take note of the years and Full Text Delays for each. If you need an article from 1970, you would want to use either JSTOR or SocINDEX; if you need an article from 1996, any of the three databases would be fine; and if you need an article that was published only 6 months ago, none of these databases would work because they all have at least a 1-year delay.
Once you've figured out which database will have your article, click the blue link to go that database and search for the title of the article. If you are using this service from off-campus, when you click on the link for the specific database, you will see a login screen. Login using your SU account and password.
How do I search by topic or discipline?
You can also use Find a Journal to search for journals in a specific field or discipline. Instead of searching for Journal of Marriage and Family, try searching for "family studies." Find a Journal will show you all the journals we have access to on the topic of family studies:
