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UC Berkeley School of Law Library UC Berkeley School of Law Library BerkeleyLaw Library

Source Collection Triage Guide: Journals & Articles

Note about news pieces

Exact copies of newspaper or magazine articles may be hard to find. For example, the same article may differ slightly (including headlines and page/column numbers!) between East and West Coast editions or between print and online editions.

Print or page image (such as PDF) copies may be impossible to find. There are online sources for page image copies from selected 18th, 19th and early 20th century newspapers and magazines (consult with a Reference Librarian for details). But more recent and local news publications may be impossible to obtain, or available only in non-page image formats.

In your PJs?

If you are working from home or elsewhere off-campus, make sure you have yourself set up for remote access (EZproxy) so that you can access campus subscription resources such as Hein Online.

Law Journals & Other Legal Periodicals

For articles from legal journals, search Hein Online first -

  • Copy/paste the volume-journal-page citation (e.g., "21 J. Contemp. Legal Studies 145") into the Citation tab; download or print the article using the download icon, which should give you the option to download the whole "section (in this case, the entire article) or selected pages.
  • If the citation does not pull up your article, click on "Law Journal Library" (under Browse Databases by Name), locate your journal title alphabetically, and locate your article in the journal by browsing volumes/dates or searching by author. You can then download or print the article.You might also want to download/print a copy of the cover or masthead page of the issue, in case complete citation information (volume, issue, date, exact journal title. etc.) is not clear from the pages containing the article itself.

If the law journal (or that date of the journal) is not in HeinOnline, search the Law Library catalog:

  • Search by main words (not abbreviated) from the journal title (not the title of the article) - Journal Contemporary Legal Issues, not J. Contemp. Legal Issues.
  • Some periodicals may be available in only print - get the year/volume you need from the Stacks or (or request paging) as you would for Books found in the catalog, and scan (for free!) or copy them using the scanning machines in the Copy/Print Center or the copy room on LL2.
  • LawCat may indicate if the journal is also available online via other databases, including HeinOnline, but Lexis or Westlaw availability is not reflected in the catalog. If your journal allows use of non-page image articles, check for legal periodicals on Westlaw and Lexis. See the search tips for Articles on WL/Lexis.

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Interdisciplinary & Non-Legal Periodicals

Online by citation - especially for interdisciplinary and/or non-legal journals and periodicals - try the Article Finder first, filling in as much citation information as you have.

Online or Print (on campus) by journal -  if the above does not find your article, you can double-check (and look for a print alternative) by using UCB's E Journal Titles A to Z finder:

  • Search for the title of the periodical (not the article title) - use whole words, not abbreviations (Journal of Personality, not J. Pers.). From the result list, note some periodicals have very similar titles, so you may have to try a few to see which one matches (checking the year against the volume cited is a quick way to see if it is a match).
  • Click on the corresponding  button to see if there is an online database that covers the date(s)/volumes you need.
  • Some databases provide page image copies (PDFs), but many journals may not be available in this format. NOTE: If full text is available online, you cannot use interlibrary requests to get it in page image format ; if your journal requires page image copies, you may be able to copy from a print source from on campus (below).
  • If no online service is found, check OskiCat by journal title, and look for print or microform holdings and get (or request the item from NRLF) in the same manner as noted in this guide for Books listed in OskiCat.
  • If UCB's E Journal Titles A to Z finder finds the title but offers no online resources for your date(s), click on the link in the UC e-Links list (under "Find a Copy") to OskiCat.

Print (not available on campus) - If an article is not available online in any format and is not available anywhere on the UCB campus, search other libraries:

  • Use the online form (click on the button for the form, log in, and then select the form for requesting an article) only if it is not available here; if the article is available online or on campus in any form, the request will not be filled. If in doubt, check with a Reference Librarian to see about your options.
  • Alternatively, using UCB's E Journal Titles A to Z finder, click on the link in the UC e-Links list to "Request this from another library ..."
  • These requests may take a 10 or more days to process. A copy may be emailed to you as a scanned document or you may have to pick up a hard copy at the Interlibrary Borrowing Service office, 133 Doe. The request is handled by the main campus library and you should receive an email notice from them. You can track and manage interlibrary requests at MyILL.