Interpreting Online Catalog Records for Journals
In the UIUC Library system, it is common for a departmental library (like Education and Social
Science) to keep recent issues (usually the last 5-10 years) of journals, and then transfer them to
Main Stacks. This can make interpreting catalog records for journals challenging. How can you tell
where a particular volume of a journal is actually located? This primer aims to assist you in
figuring this out.
- The first step is to search the online catalog for your journal title. If you know the exact
title (e.g.
The Journal of Teacher Education), the quickest and most accurate method is usually to do
a
quick
search and select "Start of Magazine/Journal Title" under the
Search By options, as shown below. (Make sure you leave out the "the" in the
title!)
- After clicking
Search, you will be presented with a list of results:
It is not uncommon for there to be more than one record for a single title, as in the case
above. There are no hard and fast rules for determining which one is the main record for the
journal you're looking for, but a couple rules of thumb:
- If one of the records reports "multiple holdings," it is more likely to be the main record
("multiple holdings" indicates that the title is housed in more than one library, which is usually
the case for entire runs of a print periodical).
- Look for a match in the "Full Title" column rather than the "Title" column--the former is
usually more precise than the latter.
In the above screenshot, it is clear that one of the records is for a microform version of
the title, so we'll want to look at the other one.
- Clicking the
Multiple holdings link takes you to the actual record for
The Journal of Teacher Education. The entire record can't be captured in a single
screenshot, so here is the first part:
This initial screen gives information for the periodical in general, including its frequency
and its subject headings. The big red
e indicates that the title is available electronically. (You would need to follow
the link to determine the date range of the electronic coverage; for this example, we'll assume
that the volume we need predates the electronic coverage.)
Scrolling down, the next screen of information is as follows:
Once again, we see the big
e indicating electronic coverage. Looking down further, we finally get to
information on the holdings of the print volumes. The Note indicates that the Education and Social
Science Library has the last ten years of this title. The specific volumes held by the library are
listed below this note. Please note that this date range only covers bound volumes, and that
periodicals are often not bound until they have been in the library for over a year. So, issues
from the current year are often not included in the online record, but that doesn't mean the
library doesn't have them!
So what if you need a volume--say, v37--that is not from the last 10 years? Scrolling down
still further to the bottom of the record, we see the following:
This tells us that Volume 43 and earlier volumes are in Main Stacks (if we scrolled to the
very bottom of this screen, we would see Volume 1 at the end of the list). Note the Status area of
the record--this tells us that two volumes are checked out, and two are missing. Checking this
information can save you an unnecessary trip to the stacks if the volume you need isn't there! If
the volume you need does happen to be checked out or missing,
Interlibrary Loan can usually obtain an article
photocopy from another institution within a week or so.
We hope this primer helps to make interpreting online catalog records for journals a little less
confusing. As always, if you need help locating a journal, an article, or anything else, please
ask a librarian.
University Library