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Home: PA 803

Periodical Articles

Books

Reference Titles

Statistics

Federal Documents

Internet Resources

PA 803: Advanced Research Design

Course Instructor: David Garson
Librarian: Jack McGeachy

Finding Periodical Articles in the Library

It takes time for information to find its way into books. If you are doing research on a topic that is happening how, you will probably want to begin your search with indexes to periodical literature.

Think of a recent news event: first reports of it appeared on TV, radio and the Internet, then in the daily newspaper, and next in weekly news magazines. Over time more lengthy articles on the event will appear in more scholarly journals, and next books on the topic might be published.

If a topic is a very current one, you may have trouble finding it covered in a periodical index. It takes time for articles to be printed, and an additional length of time for periodical indexes to be compiled and distributed. Databases like Ingenta, that quickly make periodicals' tables of content available electronically, are an attempt to shorten the time delay between the appearance of an article in a periodical and the coverage of that article in periodical indexing databases.

For recent years many journal articles are available electronically, either through links in the records contained in these indexes, or within collections of electronic resources to which the library subscribes. When using these indexes, you really have two goals in mind: 1) you want to locate good articles on your topic, and 2) having found references to good articles, you next want to locate their complete texts.

First locate articles you want to read, and then determine where you need to go to find their texts. The articles will be in a variety of locations - on the web, in paper in our book stacks, in a microformat, or available only in another library. The records in these indexes offer clues that help you locate articles, and you'll be following different paths to get your hands on the articles you need.

Academic Search Full-Text Premier
NCSU's Information System, NCSU Library's World Wide Web (with a Unity ID)
Academic Search Elite provides full text for over 1,530 academic, social sciences, humanities, general science, education and multi-cultural journals. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for nearly 2,720 journals. Over 1,700 journals are peer reviewed. Full text is available from 1990, and indexing and abstract backfiles begin with 1984.

SAGE Public Administration Abstracts
Satellite Facility, JA1 .S27, v. 1-22, 1974-1995
D.H. Hill Reference, JA1 .S27, v. 23- , 1996 to present (6th floor, Reference stacks)
Coverage is international and includes books, articles selected from 120 journals, government documents, pamphlets, and research reports.
Abstracts are grouped in broad subject categories.
Quarterly; each issues contains about 250 abstracts.

PAIS International, 1972 to present
NCSU's Information System, NCSU Library's World Wide Web (with a Unity ID)
The PAIS International database is a bibliographic index to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general. Journal articles; books; government documents; statistical compilations; committee reports; directories; serials; reports of public, intergovernmental, and private organizations; and most other forms of printed literature from all over the world are indexed. Updated quarterly.

Web of Science
NCSU's Information System, NCSU Library's World Wide Web (with a Unity ID)
Collectively, these databases index more than 8,000 peer-reviewed journals cover-to-cover, providing users with complete bibliographic data, full-length author abstracts, and cited references. Three indexes are currently available: Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, 1976 to present
Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, 1895 -
D. H. Hill Ref. GP 3.6: (Docs Bibliography)
This is the primary bibliography of publications printed by U.S. government agencies. It is available in an electronic database, 1976 to the present; but earlier volumes are available only in paper.

More information about federal government publications is given in the Federal Documents section.

Dissertations & Theses (Dissertation Abstracts), 1981 to present

Dissertation Abstracts, 1861 to 1980
NCSU's Information System, NCSU Library's World Wide Web (with a Unity ID)
Microfilm Abstracts, v. 1-10, 1938-1950.
Satellite Facility LB 7.M5
Dissertation Abstracts, v. 11-26, 1951-1966.
Satellite Facility LB 7.M5
Dissertation Abstracts International; section A, Humanities & Social Sciences, v. 27-56, 1966-Sept. 1996.
Satellite Facility LB 7.M51
Dissertation Abstracts International; section B, Sciences & Engineering, v. 27-56, 1966-Sept. 1996.
Satellite Facility LB 7.M52
Compilation of author-prepared abstracts for doctoral dissertations submitted to University Microfilms International (UMI) for publication in microfilm.
Extensive coverage of many recent U.S. and foreign dissertations.
Arranged by classed topic, with keyword and author indexes.

CIAO: Columbia International Affairs Online
(http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/eresources/public-administration.html)
(CIAO) is designed to be the most comprehensive source for theory and research in international affairs.
It publishes a wide range of scholarship from 1991 to present that includes working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, and proceedings from conferences.

NCJRS
(http://www.ncjrs.gov/abstractdb/search.asp)
The National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts Database contains summaries of more than 160,000 criminal justice publications, including Federal, State, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, and unpublished research. A related database contains PDF files in the NCJRS Virtual Library.

Criminal Justice Abstracts, 1968 to present
Satellite Facility, HV6001 .C76, 1968-1996
D.H. Hill Reference, HV6001 .C76, 1997 to present (Ready Reference, Reserve Room)
Criminal Justice Abstracts contains hundreds of in-depth abstracts of current books, journal articles, government reports, and dissertations published worldwide. It covers selectively over 500 journals published in several different languages. Updated quarterly.

CCH Human Resources Research Network
NCSU's Information System, NCSU Library's World Wide Web (with a Unity ID)
(http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/eresources/databases.html#C)
Contains health and human resources standards, guides, and regulations from Commerce Clearing House.
Includes materials from both federal and state governments.
Provides a wide variety of coverage in the areas of Human Resources Management, Pension and Benefits, Safety and Health, Payroll, Labor and Employment Law, Workers' Compensation, Unemployment Insurance/Social Security.

Sociological Abstracts, 1963 to date
NCSU's Information System, NCSU Library's World Wide Web (with a Unity ID).
Sociological Abstracts, v. 1 - 1952/53-2004
D. H. Hill Tower HM1 .S58
CSA Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,700 serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Records added after 1974 contain in-depth and nonevaluative abstracts of journal articles.

Sociological Abstracts is available in a suite of databases from the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts firm. Its interface and page navigation could be improved. Scroll down the list of CSA databases, check the box beside Sociological Abstracts, then click "Continue to Search" at the bottom of the page.

PsycInfo, 1967 to present
NCSU's Information System, or NCSU Libraries World Wide Web (with a Unity ID).
Psychological Abstracts, v. 1 - 84, 1927 to 1997
D.H. Hill BF1. P65
Psychological Abstracts cumulative indexes, v. 1 - 84, 1927 to 1997
D.H. Hill Folio BF1. P65
PsycInfo is an American Psychological Association database covering worldwide literature in psychology and related disciplines, such as psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, education, linguistics, and pharmacology. It includes dissertations, journal articles, and technical reports and book chapters. Its print equivalent, Psychological abstracts, provides coverage back to 1927.

LexisNexis Academic
NCSU's Information System; restricted use via remote access.
Use the next three links to access different search screens within this product. This resource is good to search for news sources, legal material, and business topics.


After you have opened any of these LexisNexis Academic screens, you may click "Start" in the upper right corner to bring you to the product's opening page. From there you can navigate to a wide number of resources.

News, All (English, Full Text)
Get today's news, or glance back through more than 20 years of news articles.
Using the dropdown "Select Sources" box, you may limit searches to certain individual newspapers or to news sources from various parts of the world.

US & Canadian Law Reviews, Combined
You may use the dropdown box to select United Kingdom legal journals, or to select legal journals categorized by broad subject.

Company Profiles
Want to find news about a company? With a company profile search, you can find out the latest information about a specific company such as Microsoft, Time Warner, or General Motors.
Look at the category breakdown of search results at the left margin of a results page. There you will see the subcategory, "Newswires & Press Releases". Of interest also will be "Company Directories & Profiles," which includes profiles from Disclosure, Hoover's, and Standard & Poor's.

Ingenta
NCSU's Information System, NCSU Library's World Wide Web (with a Unity ID)
This is a Table of Contents database that offers free searching and browsing of more than 25,000 publications. Full-text articles are available to users who subscribe to the ingenta service. Check local library holdings and consider ILL as an alternative to purchasing articles you identify here.

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