Q. Article Finder, Full Text Finder, Periodical Finder--what's the difference? I'm confused.

Each of the tools you mentioned has the same end (full text articles), but they use different means to get there, depending on context and how much information you have.

Article Finder

Article Finder is the place to start when you already have a particular article in mind and you have the article's publication information. You can get to it from the library homepage (click on Articles and Databases Tab of the search box, and then select the Article Finder link).

With Article Finder, you copy and paste in your article citation, and the resulting page lets you know whether we have a full-text copy of the article in either electronic or print format. Article Finder will work best if you provide the following information:

• Full title of the journal or ISSN (a unique identifier). Do not use a journal abbreviation. If you need help finding the full title or ISSN, try searching for the journal title in Google.
• Year
• Volume
• Issue
• First page of the article

You can also copy and paste in a DOI or PubMed ID, and Article Finder will look up the rest of the information.

If we have the article electronically, you'll see a link to the full text,

If Article Finder can't find a copy of the article (or if we only have a copy of the article in print or microform and you'd like a scanned electronic copy), you can use the Interlibrary Loan link to request a free copy.

Full Text Finder

Full Text Finder is a tool integrated into our online databases. It helps you locate the full text when the database you're using doesn't have a copy (this happens sometimes, mostly due to copyright restrictions).

When you're looking at a citation in an online database and you don't see a full-text copy of the article, look for the Full Text Finder button.

Clicking that button will open a window that lets you know whether or not APU has a copy of the article in any other databases (just like Article Finder--it's actually the same system!):

If none of APU's databases has a copy, you can request the article via ILL.

Periodical Finder/Journals by Title

Periodical Finder is a list of all the journals, magazines, and newspapers to which APU subscribes. Use Periodical Finder when you want to see whether we have a specific journal so you can browse back issues, or when you want to find a list of journals from a specific discipline. If you are looking for a specific article, you should use Article Finder (see above).

To search for a journal, you can either type its title into the search box under Journal Titles on the library homepage.

Still have questions? Don't hesitate to contact us!