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Bibliographic Searching

Electronic Journals

In your bibliography/suggested reading list you may find details of journal articles you should read. You can find these through the library catalogue as all our E-journals, as with all our paper only titles, are listed there. The e-journals have clickable web links which means you can read there and then via the web. (If there are no links in SFX and no web address is available it may be an article that is only available in paper and will have to be requested from HILDA)

• You should have followed the instructions under Athens DA or the web proxy
• Then log into the library catalogue as detailed above under the catalogue section.
• If you know the name of the journal you are looking for you can do an exact title search by doing an ‘Alphabetical title browse’.

As an example let’s try and find this article:

GLENNY, G. (2005) The ethics of intervention. Support for Learning. 20(1) pp12-16. –

Note the journal it is in is called Support for Learning.

1. Click on Alphabetical Browse and, making sure the drop down menu is set to ‘Journal Title’
2. Type in the title of the journal you are looking for (not the title of the article) e.g. Support for Learning and Click ‘Go’.
3. You should find the match you are looking for is second on the list of possible matches just as with a book title search. Click on it.
4. You should then see a page that gives you the title and which Library the paper copies are held in. This title also notes that it is an Internet Resource. Those that are paper only will not have this message, they will only say which library it is held in.
5. Click on the title Support for Learning. This takes you to the bibliographic record for the journal. It is a little cluttered but you should be able to see the Summary Holding which tells us the library has from Volume 1 Issue 1 1986.
6. At the top right hand side of the screen is a small button with the words SFX written on it. Click on this and a window appears.
7. If you have not logged into the catalogue, the window will say ‘no permission to view file’ and you should click on the log in button on the very top toolbar and type in your computer username and password or your library barcode and PIN.
8. In the boxes under the words Ingenta Connect type the year 2005 in the year box, the volume 20 in the volume box, issue number 1 and start page 12 and then click on Ingenta Connect.
9. You will be taken to the article abstract with a message that reads you have to pay £X amount. Don’t! (Note, you will not get this message if you are using the web proxy as detailed at: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/diss/proxy/)
10. If you are not using the web proxy and see ‘pay £x amount’ then you should click on the right hand side of the screen where the message says ‘sign in via Athens’. You will then be taken to a page that says it recognises your University of Aberdeen Athens Cookie and you should ‘click here to proceed’. Do this. (This will only happen if you have followed the instructions on Athens DA earlier in this handout.)
11. You will then see the Athens Gateway login and you should use your Computer username and password (i.e. your ‘u’ number) to log in.
12. When you have clicked ‘login’, you should be taken back to the article, but instead of having a message saying you need to pay, it should now say that you have a subscription courtesy of your institution.
13. If you click on ‘download now’, ‘full text here’ or ‘download pdf here’ (the message will be one or other of these variants!) you will get access to the full text of the article.

This may seem like a lot to follow, but we have laid this out step by step to guide your first few searches. Once you have done this a few times it will become second nature – just like ordering from Amazon or Tesco.com!

NOTE: If, when you search for a title yourself, there are no URLs (also known as web addresses) in the bibliographic record at step 5 above, then the journal is probably not available electronically. You will have to email HILDA at distancelib@abdn.ac.uk with the details of the article you are looking for and we will copy it and post it out to you.

There are many different e-journal providers and the pages do look different, but it is quite easy to navigate through them all. Most have a list of volumes or issues, and, if you haven’t used SFX to go directly to your article, you just click on the issue you want. You will then be shown the contents and you just click on the article you wish to read. Most have a button that says ‘view’, ‘full text’ or ‘download article here’ next to the article titles. You will need a portable document reader such as Adobe Acrobat and most computers will already have this installed. If not, it is free to download from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Bibliographic Databases - How to find Journal Articles, Reports and Conference Papers etc. >>