5A. Locating Periodical Articles
Part of the research process may require you to search for articles published in journals, magazines and newspapers. The ACC Library offers a wide range of resources to allow you to locate such articles.
The online ACC Library periodical collection consists of over a dozen databases. ProQuest and EBSCOhost are two excellent database choices to find articles. These are available on the ACC Library homepage arapahoe.edu/lrc.
These databases have excellent help sections that explain how to use the databases to find articles. There are also a number of tutorials on the Internet for ProQuest and EBSCOhost (can be easily found by Googling). A ProQuest Quick Reference Guide is at training.proquest.com/trc/training/en/gettingstarted.pdf
The ACC Library article databases are also available off campus with the supplied usernames and passwords (available on handouts at the Library, or call the Library at 303-797-5090). For more details about these various article databases, click here.
Some articles you access through these databases will be immediately available to you in full-text format. Other articles will not; you will only be able to access the citation or the abstract (summary) of the article. When you search for the articles in databasaes like ProQuest and EBSCOhost you can check off an option to retrieve full-text articles as well as scholarly, peer-reviewd articles.
If you would like to read the full text of these types of articles you have several options:
1. You can search the ACC online catalog or the print ACC Periodicals List (in a binder) to see if our library has a subscription to the journal/magazine/newspaper in question.
2. You can request a photocopy of the article from a library that does have a subscription to the journal/magazine/newspaper (interlibrary loan request forms are available at the Circulation Desk). The ACC Library does not charge a fee for interlibrary loan service, and in most cases the library from which the article is being sent does not charge. If there is a charge, the cost is usually a per-page fee. Please ask a librarian if you have any questions regarding how to acquire the full-text version of an article. (Books from other libraries can also be requested through interlibrary loan.)
3. You can go in person to the library that carries the periodical in question and make photocopies of the article for yourself. The following library catalog sites will tell which specific library carries the periodical you need: Colorado Virtual Library aclin.organd Prospector prospector.coalliance.org.
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