Using e-Indexes
1. What is an Index?
Tool to gain access to specific types of literature not found in the library catalogue, such as:
- journal articles
- magazine articles
- newspaper articles
- book chapters
- book/film/theatre reviews
- individual poems and stories
- ephemeral documents such as reports, studies, and broadcast transcripts
Indexes can be searched:
- on a chosen topic
- by a chosen author
- with a known title
2. Selecting an Index
The University of Toronto subscribes to over 500 electronic indexes. In addition to electronic indexes, there are many paper-based indexes in the collection, although these are not updated as often, nor are they as plentiful, as electronic indexes.
To access the indexes:
- Go to the U of T library homepage (http://www.library.utoronto.ca).
- Select Find Articles by Subject from the menu on the left-hand side.
- If you're unsure about what to use, consult the subject list to find an appropriate index.
- Select an appropriate index - it will sometimes take a minute to load. Note that while all indexes listed will search for articles within their subject area, different indexes will cover different journals, magazines, newspapers, etc.
3. Searching Indexes
There are a couple of major vendors that U of T uses to gain access to many of the available indexes. You will start to become familiar with the different interfaces and search capabilities of many of them.
General rules for searching:
- Use 'and' to combine keywords. For example, search for articles about the Kyoto protocol in Canada using kyoto and canada (note: capitalization is unimportant).
- Be creative with your search terms, especially when searching by keyword. For example, if deindustrialization is not giving you many or any results, try searching for similar terms (e.g., disinvestment and industry or decline and industry).
- Truncation will allow you to search for many variants of a word. For example, if you search on Canad*, you will be searching for Canada, Canadian, Canadians. In many cases '*' (an asterisk) is the wildcard symbol (it represent 0 or more characters), but different indexes use different truncations (e.g., a question mark (?) or a dollar sign ($)). Consult the HELP screens in the index for more information.
- If you find a really good article, check to see what descriptors and/or subject headings have been used in the record for the article. These will provide good clues for search terms.
4. Retrieving the Item
An index will tell you which book or journal has published a specific article or chapter. The book or periodical is often called the 'Source' (SO) or 'Journal ' (JN). For a journal, magazine or newspaper article, the reference will include volume, issue, date, and page numbers. For a book chapter, it will include the name of the book, page numbers plus additional publication information (e.g., publisher and date of publication).
To see whether U of T Library owns the journal, newspaper or magazine; do a 'browse' search on 'periodical title' in the catalogue. If the item is a book chapter, look up the title of the book in the catalogue by doing a 'browse' search on 'title'.