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Services and Resources for Students

 

How to...

The information on the Find Articles pages focuses primarily on finding, or identifying, articles through the libraries' resources, e.g., via subject databases, then getting copies of those articles. The tabs above will help you learn about the processes involved in finding and getting articles. You might also want to view Your Research Tool Box Your Research Tool Box, a tutorial that introduces you to library research skills.

The following resources will be explained on the Find Articles pages; use the links below if you want to use these resources now:

Find/Identify Articles:

  • Locate electronic resources by name/keyword. This search allows you to look for databases you know about by the database name and search the descriptions of what the databases cover so you can find databases in which to search for articles and other publications. Use this search to find the database that will help you, then use that database to search for your specific subject. For example, if you are searching for articles about the works of Kentucky writer Bobbie Ann Mason, look for literature in the databases search, then look for Bobbie Ann Mason and/or her works in the database(s) that look useful for this type of search.
     
  • Locate electronic resources by subject. Databases can help you look for articles and other published material. These materials are indexed in the databases; that is, they add subject terms to help you locate the materials that will be helpful to your research. This Research Guide page groups the available databases by the subjects they cover. Use Get Text at UK to see if the full-text of the article is available.

Get Articles (by periodical name):

Use Databases to Find and (sometimes) Get Articles Right Away

Many databases are available to help you identify journal, magazine and newspaper articles. You can search in these databases using keywords and subject headings (also called descriptors), for example, to identify those articles that will be useful for your research. You can also use these databases to clearly identify and get the article you want if you already know something specific about it: the title or author, for example.

You can choose databases by

Get Text @ UK

Many of these databases do provide the full-text of some of the articles they identify. In many cases, this icon will appear:

UK Full-Text Options

It will provide links to other available sources of electronic copy of the articles or journals cited in the databases. The Get Text icon also provides a link to the University of Kentucky Libraries' online catalog, InfoKat, which lists, by the title of the journal, magazine or newspaper, all of the publications we have available on the shelves in paper format. Both the E-Journals Database and InfoKat links from the Get Text icon search those resources using a number that represents the publication title (known as an ISSN or International Standard Serial Number); while this number is usually an accurate searching mechanism, it is worthwhile to perform the search using the publication's title if the linked search does not find the item you want.

If you know the journal that contains the article you want, you can find out if we have electronic access to that journal by searching the E-Journals Database, which lists, by the title of the journal, magazine or newspaper, the publications for which we provide electronic full-text of articles; note that many of these electronic titles have limits to the dates for which they can provide the full-text.