An index is a tool used to help find articles published in a variety of sources, mostly periodicals - which include journals, magazines, newspapers, and some government publications.
Indexes come in both paper and computer versions.
While they may look a little different from each other, they all work about the same. UNLV has paper indexes in the reference area, and computer indexes in the reference room and on the Internet. An index lets you search for articles on a particular subject, or by a specific author, or a number of other different ways. The results of searching an index are a list of descriptions of articles called citations . Indexes are designed to save you time when researching.