Journal Articles - a better way to find them!

Academic Journals, Scholarly Journals, Peer-reviewed Journals - we tend to use these terms interchangeably. They're all research-based publications which come out periodically (monthly, bi-monthly, 4/year). They're also, of course, the principal source of the latest and most authoritative facts and findings, ideas and insights in the world of academia (that's the world where you live most of the year).

There are tens of thousands of these things on every conceivable subject, from the straightforward to the downright weird. Titles like:

Journal of Artificial Organs
Journal of Artists Books
Journal of Applied Ichthyology (that's the study of fish, btw)
Journal of Cell Death
Journal of Cereal Science
Journal of Cleaner Production
Journal of College & University Student Housing
Journal of Cryptology (it's about computers, not vampires)
Journal of Conservative Dentistry

I'm not making these up. In fact, all of the journals above (and many, many more) are available to Saint Mary's faculty and students. Not from the Web but from the library' web site. This isn't a contradiction - it means that you can't just Google these titles and read their contents. You have to go through smu.ca/library.

We've just finished some improvements to the way the articles in these publications can be accessed. It should especially appeal to those hooked on the "type some words into a search box and see what you get" type of research strategy.

The "find articles" box in the middle of our main page will now, simultaneously, search 8 of our biggest and best databases:
  • Ebsco Academic
  • ABI Inform
  • PsycInfo/Articles
  • Science Direct
  • Wiley InterScience
  • Springerlink
  • Sociological Abstracts
  • JSTOR

Searches will retrieve approximately 300 articles from these databases, which you can display by relevance or date (most recent first). Of course, you can still search individual databases from the A-Z list if you prefer (and that's still the more focussed, advanced way to search). But if you just want a quick and easy list of articles to get you started, just use that white "find articles" box.

As ever, if you have any questions, let me know at ron.houlihan@smu.ca

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