Print Indexes and Bibliographies
Bibliographies and indexes may come in electronic or book
format, and may focus on many different topics from general
information to subject-specific research information. You will
want to identify and use the finding tool(s) that best meet
your information needs. Be open to the fact that
web-based indexes and cd-roms are not always your best (or
only) choice for all research topics. There are many
times that it's more appropriate and much more productive to
consult print indexes and bibliographies.
What are print
indexes? What are bibliographies?
In general, indexes and bibliographies are lists of the
contents of specific items - for example, magazines,
journals, and other published works. Indexes may focus
on specific topics of interest, and give a citation (and
sometimes an abstract) for each indexed item. Most
typically, when a librarian advises you to use an index, he
or she means a periodical index. These list the
contents of specific journals, magazines, and / or
newspapers on a particular topic.
Examples:
| Index to Black
Periodicals |
indexes African American
magazines & journals |
| Readers'
Guide |
indexes popular &
general interest magazines |
Borderline: A
Bibliography of the
US-Mexico Borderlands |
lists published research
on this specific topic |
What are citations?
Citations are brief, sometimes abbreviated strings of
information that help you find the item being described in
the index or bibliography. Citations for periodical
articles usually consist of the author's name,
article title, periodical
title, plus the volume
and / or issue number,
and page numbers.
Citations for books are very similar, including author,
title, title of article (if it's an individual
chapter of a book), publisher, place and date
the book was published. If the citation is for an
individual chapter in a book, the citation will generally
also include the editor's name, the book's name,
the article author's name, title of the article,
and the pages of the individual article.
Examples:
Vélez, Jorge A. 2000. Understanding Spanish-Language
Maintenance in Puerto Rico: Political Will Meets the
Demographic Imperative. International Journal of the
Sociology of Language, 142, 5-24.
Portés, Alejandro &
Hao, Lingxin. 1998.
E Pluribus Unum: Bilingualism and Loss of Language in the
Second Generation. Sociology of Education, 71, 4, Oct,
269-294.
Vega García, S.A. 2000. Latino Resources on the Web.
In Latino Library Services, Salvador Güereña, ed.
McFarland Publishers, Inc., 2000, 207-227.
What are abstracts?
These are short, often paragraph-length descriptions
of what the indexed article or item is about. Indexes
that always provide lengthy abstracts are often called abstracts,
or abstracting services
by librarians. These can be used just the same way as
indexes or bibliographies to help identify published
research on your topic.
Why
use print indexes at all?
Have you ever spent a really long time searching
the web for articles on your topic, and not find anything
useful? Have you ever secretly settled for something
that didn't quite fit your topic, or wasn't the type of
information you needed, but it was all you could find on the
web that was even close? Or, have you ever noticed
that most electronic indexes cover recent years only?
What if you need to find information from 10, 20, 50, or 100
years ago? Or, have you ever found out that your
library doesn't have the one electronic index you need?
If these things have happened to you, it's definitely time
for you to talk with a reference librarian.
Simply put, everything is not available on the web, and
everything is not available via electronic indexes.
The vast majority of valuable, published knowledge is not on
the web, but in libraries across the world. It's true
that there are a number of research journals available
full-text on the web, but did you know that web search
engines typically don't access the contents of these
journals? That means it's extremely unlikely that you
would find such articles using a web search engine!
You could spend a very long time looking on the web for
authoritative full-text research articles on the author García
Márquez, and still come up empty handed. Using
the right print index or bibliography, you could find the
information you need in a matter of minutes.
Getting Help
If you need help identifying the right index to use, or
need help using it, the best thing to do is not to use the
web but to consult with your local library's reference
librarians. Reference librarians are trained to help
you select the right tools for your research needs - whether
these are digital or traditional print sources - and show
you how to use them.
Susan A. Vega
García
What
are Print Indexes?