Page 198 - DLIS007_LIBRARY AUTOMATION

Unit 10: Library Automation in Periodicals Section

Self Assessment Notes

Fill in the blanks:
5. …………………… in scholarly journals are written by highly educated people who are
often experts, practitioners and teachers in specialized academic fields.

6. …………………… implies that one’s scholarly peers review your work.
7. …………………… focus on popular culture, i.e. entertainment, cultural trends, sports,
hobbies, etc.
8. …………………… report on national and international current events, social and political
trends, public opinion, and popular culture.

10.3 Periodical Index

A periodical index is a type of reference source that lists periodical articles by subject or author.
If you have a topic in mind, a periodical index can help you find articles about that topic. Other
listings of the contents of magazines and journals, especially for older materials, are called
periodical indexes. An index is a topical listing of the contents of an identified body of information.
For example, the index to a book identifies page(s) on which a particular name or subject
appears in the book. A periodical index is a subject listing (often including lists for authors and
titles as well as subject words) of the articles from a selected group of periodicals.
An index will point you to the right periodical, the specific date or issue copy, and even the
pages for a specific article. A periodical index works like a subject catalogue for the articles
within a group of magazines and journals. The process of using an index is similar to the process
of doing subject or keyword searches for items in a library catalogue.

Example: Rasmuson Library has both print indexes in book form and computer-based
indexes available on CD-ROM or through the Internet.

Use a Periodical Index

when looking for articles on a topic in journals, magazines or newspapers

when you know of an article but don’t have all of the information in the citation
when you want to know what has been written about a topic during a specific set of years
Examples

Historical Abstracts; America: History & Life (for world history; for history of U.S. &
Canada)
Medline (for medical or health issues)

Sociological Abstracts (for sociology and popular culture)
10.3.1 Parts of an Index

Following are the parts of index:

1. Searching Mechanism: In a print index, the searching mechanism is simply an alphabetical
list of authors, titles, or subjects that refer to a master list of citations. On-line or CD-ROM
indexes use software that search a database by author, title, subject, or keyword.

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