WEST HAVEN–Journal articles, especially from “peer-reviewed” scholarly research journals, are at the core of academic research and essential background for writing research papers. Magazines are a good source for news about the world, sports teams, celebrities, hobbies, etc. Until a few years ago, the best place to find a good collection of all these was the library shelves, where they sat lined up in rows by title and date. But increasingly these days the best place to find them is on the computer, as more publications become available in electronic form, more people have access to computers, and there are more routes to access the publications (such as the library web site, the journal or magazine’s own web site, or Google).
The UNH library pays for subscriptions to thousands of e-journals for your use. We have many databases which include their published articles-both general ones with broad subject coverage, and subject specialty databases such as Criminal Justice Periodicals, PsychArticles, Literary, Science, and History Reference Centers. We also subscribe to collections from various publishers whose journals cover topics relevant to academics at UNH, such as Sage Publications and the IEEE Computer Society. Then there are the many “open source” journals, which make their contents available freely on the web. You can find a great collection of these listed with under the Journals link on the library home page, along with the many journals which we pay for.
E-journals provide many advantages to students. You can search for your topic across many years of many journals at once by entering your keywords in the database or publishers collection search box. You can also open these journals from anywhere with a computer and your campus ID card. No pages in these journals will be damaged or torn out. There is value-added content to e-journals: many have hyperlinks to other related articles or web sites. The IEEE Computer Science Digital Library includes, along with full text of their journals and for the same price as their print journals alone, many hundreds of conference reports, which the faculty have said are essential for research in the field.
Why did I mention Google, you ask, when your professor has said that you may not use web sites in your research? Well, in Google, and especially Google Scholar, search results include citations for many published journal articles. And if our library subscribes to the journal’s online version, and you are searching within the campus IP network, then you can often access this legitimate research source from Google.
If you haven’t already, please do jump into this great pool of scholarly research and general interest information on the Library web page of the UNH web site. Swimming instruction (searching assistance) is always available at the Library Information Desk, or by calling 932-7189, or visiting the Ask-a-Librarian link on the web page.
