Search the Library Catalogue Search Library Resources Library Forms About the Library Library Help Library Home

 

 

Navigating to Online Articles

(When You Already Have Citations)

Once you have a citation for an article, it's easy to find the article, whether it's online or in print (hard copy). If you know how to read a citation, you'll be able to recognize whether it's a book or a journal you're looking for. If it's a book, search TOPCAT (the library catalogue) for the title of the book. (See the tutorial.) To search beyond the Trent Library, use RACER.

This page explains how to find a journal article.

Start with a citation. You may have found this citation in an index or a bibliography. Perhaps someone gave it to you as recommended reading. Look at your citation carefully.

Look at the title of the journal. You need to find out where you can access that journal.

You can choose which way to search first:

  • Journal Titles Available Online, or
  • TOPCAT.

You'll probably find what you need in either place, but you might need to search both. Since the majority (95%) of our journals are online, you might prefer to start with Journal Titles Available Online - find a link on the library homepage.

 

Journal Titles Available Online

This service uses Get It Trent! to search all our online journals - over 30,000 titles.

  1. Enter the first few words of the journal title.
  2. Make sure you've chosen "starts with" - click "Go".
  3. It finds every journal Trent has access to that begins with the words you typed.
  4. Click on the title that matches the one you need.

Remember it's looking at journal titles,
NOT article titles.
That's why you needed the citation to tell you which journal it's in.

Image of the Find E-Journal Screen

 

A new window opens up with information about that journal's availability.

  1. You'll get a list of providers where we can access that journal.
  2. Under each provider it tells you which volumes/dates are available for that journal from that site.
  3. Choose one that matches what you need.

 
Image of the list of ejournals found.

 

You're then connected to the site where the journal is stored, and brought as closely as possible to the journal you requested.
From there, navigate to the volume and issue provided in the citation.

 

TOPCAT

TOPCAT is our library catalogue and we use it to keep track of everything we purchase for the library.
If we purchase the journal for the library, you'll find it listed here.
Journals that aren't ordered directly, but are partially included in other resources, may not be listed.

If you don't find the journal you need using "Journal Titles Available Online", look for it in TOPCAT.

TOPCAT lists all the print journals we have, as well as most of the online journals.

You may need to check both places for journals.

See more information about finding journals in TOPCAT in our online tutorial.
Image of the TOPCAT results screen for journal title

 

If the journal you need is not available either online or in print, you can order the article through RACER, our Interlibrary Loans system. We'll get it for you from another library. There's no charge for this service, but you do need to allow us several days at least to get it.

 

Top of page.
Last Modified: January 10, 2011
Maintained by , Thomas J. Bata Library.