Catalyst will tell you if the Library has issues of a particular periodical, but not anything about the articles in it. To find articles, you need to use an index or an abstract . Some indexes and abstracts cover other types of publications than periodical articles. Just as the index to a book tells you where in the book to look for information on a particular subject, a periodical index tells you where in a periodical to look for an article on a particular topic or by a particular author. Some periodicals have their own indexes, which cover their contents only.
Some electronic indexes can search for articles in just one periodical.
However, most indexes cover many periodicals, so the periodical title will be given. Confusingly enough, the summary is also called an abstract .