Many periodicals contain their own index, but the best way to search for information in several titles at once is to use the general abstracts and indexes. These are used to search, usually by subject or author, for references to articles from an extensive range of periodicals in their subject area. This saves searching through individual periodical titles and also provides references to articles not held by the Library. Many abstracts and indexes also provide coverage of a wider range of resources such as books, reports, conference proceedings and audio-visual resources.
Abstracts also contain summaries of the resources.
It is important to realise that abstracts and indexes provide only references and not the full text of the resources themselves. Printed versions These are shelved in alphabetical order of title within the rolling stack. They can be searched by author or title. These offer a wider range of search methods as well as the opportunity to combine search terms to perform a complex search. It is also possible to search a wider date range at once and to print or save the references.