Bowdoin Library Hints

Finding Journal Articles

If you are not lucky enough to find full-text articles on-line, you will need to go hunting for the physical journals. The following example assumes you have used Medline and have found a citation for an article you really want.

In the Medline citation, in addition to noting the year, volume and page number, author and title, highlight and copy the name of the journal.

Probably leaving the Medline web page open, open another web page and go to the Bowdoin Catalog. Choose to search by "Title."

Paste in your copied title and see if Bowdoin carries the journal. If so, it will show up in the search result, and you can click on it to find what years/volumes Bowdoin has. If all goes well, you can joyfully go downstairs to find the journal alphabetically.
Often, however, Bowdoin will not have the journal. You will get this news by a result like the one below, telling you your journal "would be here" (alphabetically) if Bowdoin carried it.

At this point, you need to find out if anybody in Maine has it. Open yet another web window, go to "Indexes/Databases" and select "Maine Union List of Serials -- MULS"

At the MULS homepage, choose to search by "Title."

Since your journal title is still in memory, you can paste it into the search field.

If the journal is available in Maine, you will get a listing like that below, often listing many institutions that hold the journal (although this journal is only held by Eastern Maine Medical Center). Make a note of the insitutions, probably by printing out the page, and bring all your information to Mrs. Crawford at the Mt. Ararat Libary to request an Inter-Library Loan. Notice that the journal in this example was from 1998, but the listing here in MULS is not clear that Eastern Maine carried the journal after 1991 -- if you want to have an adventure and drive to the library yourself, be sure to call first.