What are electronic journals?

The WSU Stewart Library has electronic access to thousands of periodicals.  Many of these are online editions of long-established scholarly journals; some are digitized collections of full text articles from journals, popular magazines and newspapers;and a few are new academic endeavors which exist only online.  Most can be read directly using your web browser (like Netscape or Internet Explorer), although for many you will need to install a free plugin -- typically Adobe Acrobat Reader to read PDF files.

Who can access them?

The library purchases subscriptions to these electronic journals and digitized collections, just as we buy paper ones.  The publishers then program their computers to allow access from WSU Internet addresses.  All computers connected to the campus network have a campus address and thus can access most of these electronic journals directly.  WSU students, faculty and staff can access most of these electronic journals from off-campus by entering their University ID number.

How do I know what electronic journals the library has?

If you already know the title of the journal:

• Go to the library's electronic journals list.
• Enter the title of the journal in the search box and click on Search.
• If the title appears in the resulting list, one or more links will be provided to the electronic journal or digitized collection.
• Click on a link to access the appropriate electronic journal or digitized collection.
• You may also search our electronic journal holdings in the online catalog using a Journal Alphabetical search; links will appear in the catalog record if the journal is available online.
• Note:  Only a few of the links will go directly to the journal itself.  Often, you will need to reenter the journal title in a search box in order to bring up the contents of that journal.

If you are looking for electronic journals in a specific discipline or subject area:

• Using the electronic journals list, select Title Contains All Words from the drop-down list next to the search box, enter your search term(s) (eg. psychology, education), then click on Search.  This will retrieve all of our electronic journals with your search terms(s) in the title.  The fewer search terms you use, the better.
• Using the online catalog, select Periodical Collection from the Limits list, then do a General Keyword search using your search term(s).  This will retrieve all of our periodicals with your search terms(s) somewhere in the record.  Click on the name of the journal you are looking for.  If a link is provided, the journal is available online.   Again, the fewer search terms you use, the better.

How do I find a specific article in an electronic journal?

• If you found the article in one of our article databases, check the record in the database to see if there is a link to the full-text of the article; look for links that say HTML Full Text, PDF Full Text, or Linked Full Text (or something similar).  If a link is provided, you can usually print, save, or e-mail the full text of the article.
• If full text is not available in the article database, or you are using a citation from another source, follow the steps listed above (under "How do I know what electronic journals the library has?") to see if the journal is available online.
• If the journal is available online, follow the link provided to access the journal or digitized collection.
• Many electronic journals allow you to browse the table of contents for all available issues; use this method to find the appropriate volume and issue number.
• Most digitized collections require you to search for the article again.  You can usually search by author or article title; in most cases, you can also limit your search to the specific journal and/or specific dates, which is usually a good idea.

Why are there so many links for some electronic journals?

• Our access to electronic journals comes in several forms:
  • Sometimes we subscribe directly to the journal in online form (eg. Science)
  • Sometimes our access depends on our subscription to a digitized collection (eg. JSTOR, Project Muse), each of which includes many different electronic journals
  • Sometimes our access depends on having a subscription to a full text article database (eg. Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier), which has purchased the rights from other publishers to provide full text for certain journals, magazines, and newspapers
• Because of this, full text of some publications is available from several different sources, resulting in several different links from the electronic journals list.

How far back do these go?

• Dates of coverage for each electronic journal are indicated on the entries in the electronic journals list.  For most journals, full text is only available back five to ten years. One exception is JSTOR, a digitized collection of back files (not recent issues) for hundreds of core journals in many fields back to the first issue.  Due to publisher restrictions, coverage of some electronic journals does not include the most recent issues; these embargo periods extend from 6 months to as long as 5 years.  Publishers who establish an embargo are concerned that they will lose print subscriptions if they provide electronic access to recent t issues.

What's in the future?

• Easier Linking:  A few article databases are adding direct links to the full text of an article, and an increasing number link at least to the home page of  the electronic journal or digitized collection.
• Clickable References:  Many article databases are beginning to include cited references in the database records for recently published articles; in some cases, these cited references provide links to database records for the cited source and sometimes to the full text.