How do I find articles?

To find the most current information, an electronic journal index is your best choice. A number of indexes, both general and subject-specific are available to UNT community members in the libraries' Electronic Resources site. Good general indexes to start with include Academic Search Premier or ProQuest's Research Library. Detailed tutorials on searching these databases are available if you would like further instruction.

If you would like more subject-specific information, there are indexes on any number of topics. You can either browse the index titles by subject in the ER site, or you can use the appropriate Subject Guide for your topic to identify good sources.

If you know the name of the journal the article was published in, search under Journal Title in the Library Catalog, to see if the UNT libraries carries that particular journal. Journals may be available either in paper copies or electronically (journals available electronically will have a link to the database that contains it). Articles in journals not held by UNT can be requested through Interlibrary Loan.

To find an article in a database, knowing the title of the article, is a good start, but article title and author's name are ideal. Electronic Resources contains a number of database and index possibilities for you to search. For general research, Proquest's Research Library and EbscoHOST's Academic Search Premier are both good choices for finding articles. 

You can make your article searches more effective by using AND, OR, and NOT in the databases.  To learn more about this, go to this tutorial.

Journals may be located in any of these five UNT Libraries locations:

• Willis Library
• Science and Technology Library
  
• Media Library
  
• Remote Storage
  
• Research Park Library

Journals are shelved in alphabetical order by their titles. A journal title that appears as an abbreviation is shelved at the beginning of the section starting with that letter of the alphabet. (Example: CSF Notebook is shelved in the C section before Cable T.V. and New Media, Law & Finance.)

New or current journals are shelved separately from bound journals. If you cannot find the journal issue you need, check the Library Catalog or ask for help at the nearest Service Desk.

Many older journals are located in Remote Storage. You may request items from Remote Storage at the Main Circulation Desk in on the 1st Floor of Willis Library, or at the Reserves/Checkout Desk in the Science and Technology Library. There is also a request form for Library Materials Delivery.

You will need the following information to request a journal article from Remote Storage:

• Title of the article
• Author of the article
• Title of the journal
• Date, volume, and issue number of the journal
• Page numbers of the article

Yes. You can print out materials from within Willis Library or the Science and Technology Library for 10¢ per page, or you can download the information to a flash drive, or save it to your UNT student storage and print it out for free in any UNT General Access Computer Lab.

It depends on the database. Many databases, such as National Trade Data Bank, contain the full text of all their titles. Others, such as Academic Search Premier, include the full text of only selected articles. Some databases are only indexes, or indexes with abstracts, and include no full text. If you have questions about how to print out an article from a specific database, ask for help at the nearest Service Desk.

Search for the title of the journal (not the title of the article) in the UNT Libraries' Library Catalog, using the "Journal Title" button or the "Title" button. If you have any questions about whether the UNT Libraries own a specific journal, ask at the nearest Service Desk.

Fill out an Interlibrary Loan (ILL) request form. ILL requests for articles frequently can be sent electronically, which means they will be available within a few days, but some may take from two to four weeks to fill.