Finding articles in scholarly journals, whether they are legal journals or journals on other topics, most often involves using a periodical index. Indexes do not provide the full text of an article, but they do list articles that have been published on a given topic. In addition to providing article titles, indexes also give the author's name and the citation.
Some indexes also provide a brief summary of the article.
Online access to full-text journals is limited at best and printed journals are too numerous to page through effectively one by one. The two major legal periodical indexes are the Index to Legal Periodicals and Books and the Current Law Index . Index to Legal Periodicals and Books dates back to 1908. Current Law Index covers articles in 875 journals beginning in 1980. Users can search by subject, article author, article title, case name or the popular name of a federal or state statute.