Finding a specific article
CHECKING FOR ONLINE VERSION
When looking for a specific journal, magazine, or newspaper article, most people prefer an electronic version if it's available. The place to check whether UIUC has online access to a particular title is the Online Research Resources (ORR) page. Use the ORR to search for the title of the journal, magazine, or newspaper you need, not for the specific article. Here's an example of how to use the ORR to find an article.
Say you have the following article citation in hand, and want to find the full text:
The first step is to go to the ORR and click the Journals & Newspapers tab. Next, type in the first few words of the journal title and select Start of Title, like so:
Clicking Search brings up the following list of titles:
As you can see, there are multiple titles that begin with "Journal of Experimental Psychology;" the one we need is indicated with an arrow. The next thing to check is the date range covered for the title. In this case, articles from 1987-present are available. Since the article we need is from 2005, we should be able to find what we're after, so the next step is to click the 1987-Present in Ovid (PsycARTICLES Collection) link.
What you see next will vary from title to title, but in most cases, you will be able to browse to the year and issue you need. Here is the initial screen for Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes:
Referring back to the citation, the article we need is from Volume 31, Issue 1, so click the Table of Contents link next to this issue to bring up the following screen:
Bingo! Here we find the article we need, with the full text link indicated by a red arrow in the above screenshot.
CHECKING FOR PRINT VERSION
Finding an online version of an article is great, but it's not always possible, especially if the article you need is older. So what do you do if you can't find the full text online? There are two options:
Using the ORR's "See Catalog" Links
If you search the Online Research Resources page for the journal, magazine, or newspaper you need, you may find that UIUC has online access, but not for the date range you need. For instance, say you need a 1981 article from Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes. As we found above, we can access articles from 1987-present electronically, but earlier articles aren't online. In these cases, you can click the See Catalog links in the ORR to see whether UIUC has the title you need in print:
Clicking this link calls up the catalog record for this journal:
Scrolling down, we see that the needed volume (7, from 1981) is in Main Stacks:
Searching the Catalog Directly
Sometimes, we have no online coverage of a title, so it won't appear in the ORR at all. In these cases, you can search the catalog directly to find the journal, magazine, or newspaper you need. Here's how:
Go to the Online Library Catalog and start with a Quick Search. Type in the first few words of the journal, magazine, or newspaper title (omitting initial the's or a's) and select "Start of Magazine/Journal Title" from the "Search By:" list, like so:
Clicking Search will take you to a list of matches from the catalog, and then clicking a particular title will take you to the holdings information:
Before heading to the library to retrieve the journal, make sure you note its location and call number, and the availability of the particular volume you need.
NO ONLINE OR PRINT VERSION AT UIUC?
If you've gone through the steps above and still haven't been able to locate the article you need, don't despair! When UIUC doesn't have access to a particular article, we can usually obtain a photocopy for you from another library. This service is free for UIUC students and faculty. More information.
Please Ask A Librarian if you need help tracking down an article!
