Finding Conference Proceedings Finding Conference Proceedings Identifying Conference Papers on a Topic To locate specific papers on a given topic requires the use of a database which indexes conference papers. Many databases will only cover conference papers if they happen to be published as part of a journal. Some, however, do cover papers from other sources.
Databases vary in how to best search for conference papers.
Once you've found a paper in the databases above, or from a reference in a bibliography or footnotes, you need to locate the item in the library. Locating the proceedings of a specific conference can be tricky. Conference proceedings are sometimes published as individual books, or as annual series of books, or as special issues of regular journals. Sometimes a book will appear with the name of the sponsoring organization in the title, or with the organization as the author and the title of the particular meeting as the book title. As a result of all these possibilities, some conference proceedings can be hard to locate.