Sometimes, you'll want to acquire an article from a particular academic journal, rather than executing a topical search across many journals. Here are is a guide for how to do just that.
Step 1: A to Z
First, click on the "Electronic Journals" text link on the Library Homepage
You will be directed to the interface of a program called "A to Z." This is an extremely useful tool for navigating the electronic collection. The interface looks like this:
If you are accessing the collection from off campus, you will be prompted for a username and password. The username is your student ID number and the password is the universal PIN number given out in information literacy instruction sessions. Call or email the library if you do not know the PIN.
Step 2: Perform a Search
Type the title of the journal you are looking for into the search box underneath the heading, "Search Full-Text Electronic Journals." Click the maroon "Search" button to the immediate right on the searchbox. You will be directed to a results page that will look like this:
If Bedsole Library subscribes to the electronic journal, then that journal will be among the list of retrieval results that is displayed. If we do not subscribe to the electronic version, or we do not have the issue(s) you need, then check the list of physical journals we have. Should we have neither the electronic nor the physical version, then you can use the interlibrary loan service.
Step 3: Select a Journal
Under the journal title, there will be a list of text links along with dates. The title of the journal is bolded. The maroon text links are electronic databases that contain scanned copies of issues of the journal title. These links are what you click on in order to get to the journal. Consider the journal title (the bold text) as a particular product you want to buy and the database title (the link) as a particular store or vendor you want to get it from. All you are doing when you click on link x under the title you want instead of link y is choosing to get sugar from Wal-Mart instead of Bruno's.
To the right of the text link, there are dates listed in gray. These dates refer to the dates of the journal you will access to through a particular vendor. You may see that some journal titles are "embargoed" for a certain period of time. If a title has a one year embargo, then Bedsole Library has electronic access to all issues from the given start date through one year ago from the day you are browsing. You will also notice a text link indicating the subject classification of each journal title. To view other journals about a similar subject, click that link.
Step 4: Navigating the Vendor Interface
So, if we look at the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, we see that there are three database vendor links. The first one, ATLA, contains issues from 1969 - present, with an embargo of two years. Both ProQuest Central and ProQuest Religion have this journal from 1997 - present with no embargo. So, ATLA works well if you want older issues, but ProQuest has the most current stuff. Let's say you want to see the mos current issue. click on ProQuest Religion. You will be directed to their interface:
To view the most current issue, you can click the text link "View most recent issue" under the main title. Some vendors may not have such a link. In that case, click the appropriate "+" boxes to expand the lists. When you've found the newest issue for this year, click the text link to it. You will be directed to a list of all the articles in the most current issue ordered according to pagination:
Find the article you want, and click on the Full-text PDF or Full-text HTML link to bring up the article in its entirety.
Table of Contents
Sometimes, you'll want to acquire an article from a particular academic journal, rather than executing a topical search across many journals. Here are is a guide for how to do just that.
Step 1: A to Z
First, click on the "Electronic Journals" text link on the Library Homepage
You will be directed to the interface of a program called "A to Z." This is an extremely useful tool for navigating the electronic collection. The interface looks like this:
If you are accessing the collection from off campus, you will be prompted for a username and password. The username is your student ID number and the password is the universal PIN number given out in information literacy instruction sessions. Call or email the library if you do not know the PIN.
Step 2: Perform a Search
Type the title of the journal you are looking for into the search box underneath the heading, "Search Full-Text Electronic Journals." Click the maroon "Search" button to the immediate right on the searchbox. You will be directed to a results page that will look like this:
If Bedsole Library subscribes to the electronic journal, then that journal will be among the list of retrieval results that is displayed. If we do not subscribe to the electronic version, or we do not have the issue(s) you need, then check the list of physical journals we have. Should we have neither the electronic nor the physical version, then you can use the interlibrary loan service.
Step 3: Select a Journal
Under the journal title, there will be a list of text links along with dates. The title of the journal is bolded. The maroon text links are electronic databases that contain scanned copies of issues of the journal title. These links are what you click on in order to get to the journal. Consider the journal title (the bold text) as a particular product you want to buy and the database title (the link) as a particular store or vendor you want to get it from. All you are doing when you click on link x under the title you want instead of link y is choosing to get sugar from Wal-Mart instead of Bruno's.
To the right of the text link, there are dates listed in gray. These dates refer to the dates of the journal you will access to through a particular vendor. You may see that some journal titles are "embargoed" for a certain period of time. If a title has a one year embargo, then Bedsole Library has electronic access to all issues from the given start date through one year ago from the day you are browsing. You will also notice a text link indicating the subject classification of each journal title. To view other journals about a similar subject, click that link.
Step 4: Navigating the Vendor Interface
So, if we look at the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, we see that there are three database vendor links. The first one, ATLA, contains issues from 1969 - present, with an embargo of two years. Both ProQuest Central and ProQuest Religion have this journal from 1997 - present with no embargo. So, ATLA works well if you want older issues, but ProQuest has the most current stuff. Let's say you want to see the mos current issue. click on ProQuest Religion. You will be directed to their interface:
To view the most current issue, you can click the text link "View most recent issue" under the main title. Some vendors may not have such a link. In that case, click the appropriate "+" boxes to expand the lists. When you've found the newest issue for this year, click the text link to it. You will be directed to a list of all the articles in the most current issue ordered according to pagination:
Find the article you want, and click on the Full-text PDF or Full-text HTML link to bring up the article in its entirety.
251.442.2246 | umlibrary@umobile.edu | @umobilelib(C) 2012 The University of Mobile and the J.L. Bedsole Library
Originally created by Charles W. Hodgin III