Now it is on the computer, so you don't have to be quite so good at alphabeticcal order. You still have to know how to spell. This is a statewide effort funded by lottery money that gives you access to many electronic databases, catalogs and indexes. Some of the periodicals indexed in the databases are full text. Periodical - anything that is published more than once.
Magazines are a periodical, as are journals and newspapers.
A magazine is something of general interest - think doctor's office waiting room. A journal is a special interest periodical, usually directed at a profession or specific area of study. Search Engine - a computer program that goes out onto the World Wide Web for you, and looks at all the pages, and returns to your computer only the ones that it feels match your search criteria. It does this by looking for key words on the pages on the web.