How Do I?

Periodicals include magazines, newspapers, newsletters, bulletins and academic journals.

Why use periodicals?
The frequency of publication (weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly etc) means the information they contain is always up to date.

Academic or scholarly journals
Contain results of original research, and in-depth analysis of a topic. Information is peer-reviewed and often includes data, tables, graphs, and charts to present findings.

Trade & industry journals
These are a good way to remain aware of trends, products and news.

Popular magazines
These are largely opinion-based articles, and are more lightweight in content. Wider target audience, therefore often colourful and more appealing presentation. 

Newspapers
Produced on a daily or weekly basis, treatment is often less in-depth, but extremely current.

Newsletters 
Produced by organisations specifically to inform readers of events, developments and opportunities within a particular interest group. Often a good source of human resources. The library catalogue will tell you which periodicals we have in our library, but to find out which articles are inside the periodicals, you need to use the databases.

Databases 
Databases allow access to millions of articles, including those published in periodicals which we don’t have in our library.

Some databases provide an index only (i.e. title of periodical, year, & month or volume & issue, and even page number). Others will provide the full text which you can either print or e-mail.

To access the databases, go the catalogue, and select “databases” from the menu.