Library and Internet Skills

How to Find Journal Articles

Look up the Title of the Journal in Library Catalogue to see whether UTL has it in print or online.

Example citation:

Harris, Richard. "More American than the United States: Housing in urban Canada in the Twentieth Century," Journal of Urban History. May 2000, v. 26 no. 4, pp. 456-471.

Choose "begins with" and "periodical title" in Library Catalogue.

Look up journal of urban history

Check to see if we have volume 26.

Check to see what library the journal is held in. Journals are organized differently in the various campus libraries. Gerstein, OISE, and many other campus libraries, arrange their journals alphabetically by title in a special journal reading room or area. Sometimes they will have a separate area for current issues.

Robarts Library keeps its current issues on the 4th floor in the Current Periodicals Reading Room. Back issues are kept in the books stacks, 9th to 13th floors. You will need to write down the call number in order to find your journal.

If it is an online journal, look for the title under e-Journals, from the library home page.

Detailed Instructions for finding journals in Print and Online

REWRITE Use the old text-based version of Library Catalogue because it has the most complete information.

1) Choose 'Title.' Enter the name of the journal, e.g., 'journal of urban history.' Enter the first word(s) of the TITLE omitting leading articles such as A, AN, and THE, and press RETURN. Press F10, EXIT, or Ctrl-Z to cancel. Journal of urban history You will find a hit list like this. Sometimes the hit list will be longer. If your list is too long, you can use Limit to eliminate books that happen to have a similar name to your journal.

1 [1] Journal of urban history.

2 [1] Journal of Urban History [computer file]

3 [1] Journal of urban history [computer file]

For detailed information on any of these journal entries, choose the number to the left.

Entry 1 refers to a print subscription. See instructions on finding print journals on the shelf, next.

Entry 2 and entry 3 are listed as computer files. See online journals for help.

Finding Print journals on the shelf

To see the details for the print subscription above, press '1.' This example is from Robarts Library. Records from other libraries may differ somewhat.

CALL NUMBER: HT 111 .J68 ROBA v. 1(1974/75)+ INDEXES v.1-10(1974-84) CURRENT ISSUES IN: PRRH TITLE: Journal of urban history. LIBRARY HOLDINGS AT Robarts Library 1. Latest: v. 26:n. 6 (09/2000)

What does this mean?

Call Number: HT 111 .J68 ROBA

The older issues of this journal are at this call number in the Robarts book stacks. Please note that many other campus libraries, such as Gerstein or OISE shelve their journals alphabetically by title in a special area.

v.1 (1974/75)+ The plus sign '+' indicates that the library has subscribed to the journal since volume 1. There are no missing volumes. Look at the bottom of the screen for the latest issue. Latest: v. 26:n. 6 (09/2000)

INDEXES v.1-10 (1974-84) There is a separate index to the first ten volumes of the journal, which is shelved with it. Please do not confuse the index information with the volume information.

CURRENT ISSUES IN: PRRH The current issues of the journal are kept in the Robarts Library Current Periodicals Reading Room, 4th floor.

To find your article: First, note whether the library has the volume you need. If not, go back to your hit list and see if another U of T Library has the volume you need, or whether it is available online. Then go to the library that has your journal.

Where do you find current issues?

Recently published journals are shelved alphabetically by title in the Current Periodicals section in many U of T libraries. While libraries may differ, you could usually expect to find the current, and possibly the previous, year's issues in a current periodicals section.

Where do you find back issues?

Journals published more than one or two years previously are bound into volumes. In most campus libraries, including the Gerstein Science Information Centre, back issues are shelved in order by title in a special journals section. In Robarts Library, back volumes are shelved with the books in the book shelves (9th to 13th floor) by call number, in this case, HT 111 .J68.

Binding

While the current issues are in the process of being bound into volumes, they are temporarily unavailable. If you can't find any issues for a journal published a couple of years previously, check with the staff in the periodicals area of the library. They will be able to tell you if they are out for binding.

Find Online Journals

You can access online journals from e-Journals on the library home page. You can either look them up directly under e-Journals, or look them up in Library Catalogue first, as described below. If you are just starting your research, begin with a Journal Index, to identify good articles on your topic.

To find online journals

1) Go to the library home page at http://www.library.utoronto.ca/

2) Choose e-Journals. The page will look like this graphic:

3) You have three options:

a) Enter the name of the journal in the 'Find a title' box.

b) Look it up alphabetically.

c) If you know the name of the publisher or vendor, you can look up a list of all of their journals under those categories.

4) One or more titles for your journal may come up. Click on one. This will take you to your journal online. * Please note that if you see the note "Citations and Abstracts only" the full-text will not be available.

Online journals are organized in two ways:

1) In sequence by volume and issue. Simply follow the sequence until you find the article you need.

2) Mixed with other journals in a searchable journal index. Look up the title of the article that you want in order to find the full text. These indexes will usually allow you to choose a "search by title" option.

Print, Save, E-mail

Most journal articles can be printed or saved, some can be e-mailed. See the instructions on Printing, Saving, and E-mailing.

Look up print and online journals at the same time

Our online journals are listed in Library Catalogue, the library's online library catalogue. If you look up a journal title in Library Catalogue you will be able to find out about our print and electronic holdings at the same time.

For example, if you look up the 'journal of urban history' under Title in Library Catalogue, you will find this hit list.

1 [1] Journal of urban history.

2 [1] Journal of Urban History [computer file] 3 [1] Journal of urban history [computer file] Item 2 and 3 represent online journals. The record for number

3 looks like this. CALL NUMBER: Internet URL:

http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/eir/detail.cfm?Resources__ID=16660&T=J TITLE: Journal of urban history [computer file]. PUB. BEGAN/ENDED: Coverage as of Feb. 15, 1999: Vol. 25, no. 2 (Jan.1999)- PUBLISHED: [Thousand Oaks, Calif.] : Sage Publications, SUBJECTS: Cities and towns--History--Periodicals.

Bad Idea! Do not write down the url! If you try to enter it in your web browser, it will not get you anywhere.