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PERIODICALS:. Publications that appear regularly within certain intervals of time. Publications that are published continuously within a regular time frame (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.).
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PERIODICALS: • Publications that appear regularly within certain intervals of time. • Publications that are published continuously within a regular time frame (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.). • Publications that are published with some chronological regularity and intended to be published indefinitely.
PERIODICALS can be: • Popular (newspapers, magazines, newsletters) • Trade/professional (published by organizations) • Scholarly (journals published by universities, colleges, scholarly societies, etc.)
PERIODICALS can appearin various formats: • Print • Microform Ex: microfilm, microfiche • Electronic format Ex. CD-ROM or other standalone computer application such as SciFinder Scholar) • Online (available via the WWW)
HOW TO SEARCH FOR PERIODICAL ARTICLES • DATABASES & INDEXES should become your best friends. • Databases available via UAlbany Libraries are listed either: • by subject OR • alphabetically
CONTROLLED VOCABULARY VS. KEYWORD SEARCH CONTROLLED VOCABULARY: • Library of Congress SUBJECT HEADINGS • National Library of Medicine SUBJECT HEADINGS • Descriptors assigned by indexers • Thesauri assigned by indexers Ex. Art and Architecture Thesaurus KEYWORD SEARCH: • Any possible word that seems appropriate for a particular topic • KWIC (keyword within the context) and KWOC (keyword outside the context)
CONTROLLED VOCABULARY ADVANTAGES: • You get better search results (more precise, smaller number of returned entries saves you time). DISADVANTAGES: • You have to find controlled vocabulary terms first. • It’s inflexible – once a term is assigned, you have to follow it
KEYWORD SEARCH ADVANTAGES: • You use words from your natural language. • You don’t have to come to the library and search LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADINGS (LCSH). DISADVANTAGES: • The number of results returned is often overwhelming. • The relevance of the results is quite low (the computer searches for every possible use of your keyword).
HOW DATABASES WORK Each database has a slightly different set of rules Usually they use Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT Truncation operators (also Wildcard characters): you can shorten the word and it will look for similar words with the same roots (diseas* will bring “disease” and “diseases”) Proximity operators will search for terms within several words from each other in a phrase.
IMPORTANT !!! Read about every particular database you’re about to search. Do not use too many search terms while performing a Boolean search (two-three is usually enough). Once you find a good article, check descriptors (or subject headings) from the full record to get similar controlled vocabulary terms for subsequent searches.
USEFUL TIPS: • When looking for scholarly journals, check delimiter “peer-reviewed” (in some publications it’s called “refereed”). • If in doubt go to Databases & Indexes and select Ulrich’s International Periodical Directory. It has all necessary information about your periodical (place of publication, initial dates of publication, subjects covered, etc.) VERY USEFUL!