Find a Journal or Article

Most journals - either print or electronic versions held by the Library are listed in the Library Catalogue, and can be found by searching the catalogue by the name of the journal. If the journal is held in electronic format – there will be a link in the catalogue to the journal, or the database in which it can be found.

Individual journal articles about a specific topic can be located by searching a database using relevant keywords or subject headings.

Journals
Articles

Journals

Journals, periodicals, serials and magazines are published as individual issues throughout the year, and may be in print or electronic formats.

To find a journal you will need to use the Library Catalogue, or the 'Find eJournal' option in SmartSearch.

Catalogue

To find print and/or electronic journals

Select the journal titles button
Select "title begins with" from the drop down menu
Enter the name of the journal – omitting leading articles (e.g. A, The, ...) Journal of Botany
Select the name of journal from the list of titles
Follow the link to the print and/or electronic version displayed in the 'Location' column
The 'Summary Holdings' informations shows the volumes, issues & years held or available

The link to the electronic version of a journal may take you directly to the journal and a list of issues, or to the search screen of the database that includes the journal.

Find eJournal option in SmartSearch

To find electronic journals

Login to SmartSearch
Select 'Find eJournal'
Search for the name of the journal, using the 'Titles' or 'Locate' options
Click on the SFX icon to link to the electronic version of the journal

See Accessing eJournals in SmartSearch for further help.

Electronic journals are a wonderful resource, and given a choice most students and academic staff begin their research using electronic resources. Many users prefer electronic journals over print journals; citing reasons such as search capability, currency, availability and ease of use. But the publishing industry is struggling with the transition from print to online delivery.

Many journals are only published in print format.
Older issues of the journal are often not available in electronic format.
Where the electronic journal is accessed via a third party database (e.g. ProQuest), the publisher may place an embargo (e.g. 12 months) on access to recent issues of the journal.
The Library subscription / access to the journal may not include all volumes or issues of a journal.
The database(s) that index the subject area you are interested in may not include the full text of the journal(s) that you require. It may be available in full text in another database.
Electronic journals included in some databases may only include the text – omitting images and tables

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Articles

To find a journal article about a specific topic you will need to use a database.

A database is a collection of information arranged into individual records to be searched by computer, in this case journal articles. It may also include conference papers, book chapters, reports, dissertations, books and other types of information. Databases collect together articles in a subject area. Depending on the database, this subject could be broadly defined e.g. education or more narrowly defined e.g. Australian criminology.

Databases generally give you a reference or citation which is enough information to allow you to find the article. This includes: the title and author of the article; the periodical name, volume, issue number, pages and date; subject headings and often an abstract (summary) of the article. They may include the full text of some articles.

Databases allow you to search for articles using keywords. You can combine the keywords to focus your search so that you can find articles relevant to your topic. Searching databases is not especially difficult. Each database system uses the same principles of searching even though they use different search screens.

To access the databases that CSU subscribes to you can start at the database page. This page includes links to databases and guides on how to use them.

Selecting a database:

If you are not sure which database to use for your topic, select one of the general subject areas under the heading Journal Databases listed by Subject(e.g. education). These subject areas are broadly based on Faculty or Schools, and include an annotated list of databases that may be relevant to your topic.
Use the alphabetical list of databases to go directly to an individual database.
Use the drop down list to access one of the selected multiple or full text database services (e.g. ProQuest, Ovid, Informit Online, Wiley InterScience).

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