Why Use Print Indexes?

Even in this digital age, not everything is available on computer. Particularly if an article was written before the early 1980s it likely still must be found through a print index. In addition, even though we have more electronic article databases all the time, no library has electronic coverage of all journals and magazines in a field. If you are doing in-depth or historical research on a topic, you should not risk overlooking important articles which are not available online. Print indexes help insure that you are getting the full picture.

Indexes and Abstracting Services

What librarians tend to refer to as "Print Indexes" are actually two different types of resources, print indexes and print abstracting services. The difference between them is that an index contains one alphabetical listing of headings for authors and subjects. In an abstracting service, there is a listing of numbered abstracts for the year, with separate subject, author, and other indexes either in the back or in a separate volume. Searching an index is a one-step process. Searching an abstracting service is a two-step process.

Searching a Typical Index: The Reader's Guide

To use a print index, look in the alphabetical listing for the topic you are researching. You may find the main heading immediately, or you may encounter something that looks like this:

This is a "See" reference. It tells you that there is another place in the index which lists articles on the subject you are looking for, and gives you the heading. You also may find a "See Also" reference, which points you to another heading for additional articles.

If you go to the heading "Year 2000 date conversion (Computer systems)", here is what you find, with the parts labeled:

The title of the magazine is abbreviated--there is usually a list of what the abbreviations mean in the front of the volume.

To get the full article, you would either copy down or photocopy the citations, and do a check for the journal title (not article title!) in the Electronic Journal Title Finder, and/or in the ALADIN Catalog, in order to make sure we have the issue you want. If so, it is likely that the journal will be downstairs on the shelves in the lower level shelved under its title.

Searching a Typical Abstracting Service--Communications Abstracts

To use an abstracting service, you first look for your topic in the Subject Index. Here's what it looks like:

The listing gives you a brief word or phrase describing the article and a number. This number is the number of the abstract (not the page number!). You turn back in the volume to the listing of abstracts, find the number of the one you want, and look at the full citation to see if it is really what you expected. For example, here is one of the citations under the heading "First Amendment", number 1426:

If so, either note down or photocopy the citation, and do a check on the journal title in the ALADIN Catalog as for a print index.

Samples for this page were taken from:
Gauthier, Mark A. and Jen M. Marra, eds. Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature 59 (1999):2769, 2772.
Gordon, Thomas F., ed. Communications Abstracts 22.5 (October 1999):710, 796.