Robbins Library Notes

Good morning! Today, I’ll list several sources that are helpful for locating general interest periodicals. I often receive requests for articles from these sorts of publications, and thought it would be helpful to offer my readers some places where they might look.

Academic Search Premier

I’ve already reviewed Academic Search Premier (ASP) extensively, so I won’t say very much more about it. In addition to scholarly publications, ASP also holds a number of general interest publications that may be of use for pedagogical or research purposes.

Factiva

Though Factiva, a joint-venture between Dow Jones and Reuters, focuses primarily on business information, it is also a good source to turn to in order to find articles from journals and newspapers, as well as information from Web sites, news wire services, and transcripts.

Factiva’s search style is relatively easy to pick up, being a variant of Boolean searching, and clear examples of how to use the search language are provided. Searches can also be limited to a single source or several sources, by language, and by region.

If you are interested in learning more about how to use Factiva, please let me know. I may write a more detailed overview in the near future.

Lexis Nexis Academic

Recently redesigned and relaunched, Lexis Nexis Academic (LNA) is an excellent source for legal, government, and historical information, as well as for general news and interest publications.

LNA now offers two search options: the more basic Easy Search and the more advanced Power Search. Having done a few searches, it seems that they have made the searching process and dealing with results much friendlier and easier to deal with, unlike the older version.

As with Factiva, I’m very happy to show any who are interested how to use LNA, so please let me know. And I’ll consider a review of LNA as well.

Summary

These are just a few of the places in which to find general interest publications. But, remember that Harvard does not electronic access to many publications, even those of general interest, e.g., the New York Review of Books, or the London Review of Books, though we may get them in the future.

Thanks for reading! Please let me know if you have any comments or questions.