In the “Find Articles” section, there should be a list of the journals under each section. For example, there are many journals for Speech Pathologists (for which Temple has a Master’s program) but there is no way to search through these journals as a group.

We would certainly like to be in a position to offer a better system for either identifying all the journals in a subject area, like speech pathology, or enabling a way to search all those journals. But given the state-of-the-art in our information systems that capability isn’t exactly available today. There are a few things you could learn that would enable you to produce a list of journals in a subject area, though it wouldn’t necessarily be 100% accurate, and there are some techniques for limiting an article database search to specific journal titles.

In the library catalog, DIAMOND, you can structure a subject search along the lines of “speech disorders–periodicals” and that will return a list of journals to which we describe in this discipline.

You can use Journal Finder to browse journals by subject disciplines; dozens of disciplines are represented. Though I didn’t find one for speech pathology there were many in the health disciplines.

Our librarians create subject guides that we call LibGuides that can help with research topics. Some of the librarians have created customized search boxes for specific subject areas. We have LibGuides for a limited number of topics, but you are welcome to request that we create one for a new subject area.

Many of our electronic databases offer advanced search features that allow you to search by specific journal titles. This is a technique that is less familiar to most library users and we suggest that you seek assistance when you need to do this by coming to the reference desk or make an appointment with the library liaison to your academic department.

Perhaps the best advice we can offer is for you to get to know the librarian that serves as the subject specialist for your discipline. Our librarians have expertise in research and information retrieval and can often identify good solutions for almost any type of research need. Start by examining the list of subject specialists.

I am thinking of acquiring Endnote as software I can use to manage my citations and create bibliographies. I recall that the Temple University Libraries at one time provided support for Endnote users. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. What happened?

You are correct that the Libaries did at one time provide support for Endnote. However, in 2005 the Libraries acquired a subscription to RefWorks, a web-based service for managing personal citations and creating bibliographies. Through the Libraries, RefWorks is free to everyone who has a currently valid Temple University network account. As a result of the move to RefWorks the Libraries found they could no longer support Endnote.

If you would like to know more about RefWorks and how it compares to Endnote you can read this older blog post about the two different bibliographic managers. If you want to explore other options you can learn more about Zotero which is an open source bibliographic management software. At this time the Libraries do not support Zotero.