What Index Should I Use?

What is an Index?

Indexes describe the content of popular magazines, scholarly and professional journals, and other kinds of publications ranging from literary anthologies to government documents.
 

Different kinds of indexes and where to find them

An index at the end of a book may list names and subjects mentioned in the book. Indexes like the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature use an alphabetical arrangement of subjects and names to describe recently published articles in a variety of magazines and journals. Other indexes list journal articles in a broad subject area such as medicine, or may describe published material other than magazines and journals, such as plays, Congressional Hearings, or United Nations Official Records.

Electronic indexes (web-based indexes on the University Libraries web site) list the contents of journals and other literature, and offer advantages over many print indexes in allowing the user to search for retrieve information. Also, some of the web-based indexes provide the full text of selected articles.

Printed indexes are available in the Main Reference area, at other reference points in Getchell Library and in the UNR branch libraries.
 

Choosing an Index

Keep in mind that articles in popular magazines and newspapers are usually written by professional journalists, rather than by scholars or researchers. The general public is the intended audience for popular magazines and newspapers. Journalists writing for these publications assume no common area of specialization among their readers.

Articles in scholarly or professional journals are commonly peer-reviewed, and are written by researchers targeting their information to other researchers and practitioners working in the same discipline as the author.

If you need to find information in either popular magazines or scholarly and professional journals, choose a general interdisciplinary index like Academic Search Premier (EBSCOHost). Academic Search Premier covers current news quite well and with little delay, as does Global Newsbank , which provides information from print and broadcast news sources in the U.S. and around the world. All UNR students should become familiar with these general information sources.

If you want to locate scholarly, scientific, or professional articles in a particular discipline, you should use one or more of the databases listed under Databases, Web Sites, and Other Resources by Subject on the UNR Libraries' web site. Most disciplines have at least one primary and authoritative print and electronic index, such as Index Medicus/ Medline for medicine and allied sciences, and Resources in Education/ Current Index to Journals in Education/ ERIC for education. To become conversant in a particular discipline and understand its communication patterns, students majoring in that discipline must learn to use its primary indexes.

Other electronic and print indexes are available to help you locate information such as testimony in Congressional hearings, maps, plays, poetry, statistics, psychosocial tests and other types of information not found in magazines, newspapers or journals. Consult the library staff to determine which indexes offer the best information for your needs.