In most of your research, you will be looking for information on a topic rather than for an article from a specific periodical. In this case, start your search by going directly to a library periodical database. A database is simply an organized collection of information, like your contacts list in your smart phone. The library has several databases for finding different types of information. For example, you may have used Credo Reference to find background information on your topic and the library catalog to find books. The library also has several databases that provide access to full-text articles from a huge selection of magazines, journals, and/or newspapers.
Start your search for articles with a general database such as Academic Search Complete, which provides articles from popular magazines and scholarly journals on many subject areas. Then, find articles from specialized subject article databases. You can use the A-Z Database List to sort databases by subject. If you are off campus, you will see a login page prompting you to enter your student ID and password.
Most of the databases provide many of the same features including:
When you're searching in one of our online databases, it's easy to limit your search to peer-reviewed journals. For example, in Academic Search Complete, there's an option on the main search page under "Limit your results" to limit the search to scholarly (peer reviewed) journals:
You can also limit your results after you've done a search by clicking the Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals box in the left margin next to the results:
Keep in mind that not everything appearing in a peer-reviewed journal is a peer-reviewed article; there are also book reviews, editorials, etc.
If you want to find a specific journal, or have a citation already and want to find out if the article is available at Foothill, use the Find Journals in OneSearch to search by journal title or ISSN (International Standard Serial Number). This will show you whether we have the journal available either in the library or electronically. You can also Browse Journals by Category.
The Foothill Library has subscribed to a couple of new search tools which make it easier to find scholarly sources including peer-reviewed articles and academic books.
LibKey Nomad is a browser extension that provides instant links to full text content for articles and e-books as you do research on the Web. Get one click access to library content from publisher websites like PubMed, Wikipedia and more. No matter where you are searching, the library is there!
Follow these steps:
Now when you search you should see Download PDF or View Complete Issue! if resources can be accessed through the library. For details, watch the following video:
Another new search tool provided by Foothill Library is LibKey.io. LibKey.io will allow you to quickly search using a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) or PMID (PubMed identifier). After confirming Foothll College as your organization, you will be taken to a screen that tells you if the source is available at the Foothill Library. It will also provide you with a link to download the full-text PDF of that source or a link to the article itself.
