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SHORTCUT 17 Find the Storage Places for Periodicals A periodical is a publication that is printed in a series at a set interval. Each publication in the series has the same title. Newspapers, popular magazines, trade journals, and annual reports of businesses, foundations, and other organizations are all periodicals. In large libraries, recent issues are kept on accessible shelves in one room or section, and old issues are stored-bound, microfilmed, or on CD-in another place where retrieval may be by request. Some libraries keep the old, bound issues in the book stacks. Most libraries purchase one copy of each periodical that's likely to be useful to their particular readers, and a researcher's greatest frustration is to discover that the issue she needs is in limbo at the bindery. If that happens to you, see Shortcut 21 for help with interlibrary loan. The library's.reference section has many guides that help retrieve information from periodicals. The one students know best is Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. It indexes only the most popular consumer magazines. For the serious researcher, many periodical indexes are more valuable. Here's just a sampling. • In the field of medicine, Index Medicus is the most complete researchers' guide to periodicals. • In the field of psychology, Psychological Abstracts is the best index to articles. • In the field of education, Education Index is quite complete. 54 Copyrighted Material Find the Storage Places for Periodicals 55 • In the field of economics, Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS) Bulletin is the guide to go to. • In the field of modern languages, use Modern Language Association (MLA) International Bibliography. • For social sciences and humanities journals, there's Social Sciences and Humanities Index. • For newsworthy information, start with The New York Times Index. • In the fields of practical science and engineering, Applied Science and Technology Index is best known. These indexes are often available, with search engines, on the Internet. Internet searches are much faster than in books, but can miss a lot unless you're very adept at using keywords. To find authoritative articles and research reports on your topic, it saves time if you begin with the appropriate index and work backward from the most recent applicable entries. From their titles, choose the articles that seem to contain useful information. If you're using a Web site that has hypertext links, a click may take you to the actual article. If not, to find an actual article, you'll have to jot down at least: • the publication, volume number, and complete issue date (year, month, and, in some cases, even the day of the month) • the primary author's last name • the first few words of the title • the page numbers on which the article appears For additional tips on using indexes, see Shortcuts 19 and 20. Copyrighted Material ...

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