-> How to: Search in the TUJ Library Catalog

One of the most powerful features of our library catalog is the ability to search in one place for articles that are located in any of Temple University's ~1000 library databases.  We subscribe to these databases in order to provide access to millions of newspaper, magazine, and scholarly journal articles.  Through our databases we also have access to other formats, including ebooks and streaming audio and video.

To find articles, type your keywords into the box below to run a search in the library catalog. 

After the search results load, use the "Resource type" filter on the left-hand side to limit the results to "Journal Articles", "Magazine Articles", "Newspaper Articles", or any other category that fits your needs.

HINT - If your professor has specified that you must use peer-reviewed sources, you can apply the "Availability" filter for "Peer-reviewed only" to further narrow your results.  You can learn more about peer-review in this research guide.

Another option is to search within specific library databases using their own interfaces.  Doing so means you are searching a much narrower set of materials than when you search in the library catalog, but the targeted scope of a database can often produce more relevant results.  Some databases also include additional search filters or may enable you to do deep/full-text searching. 

You can view a list of all of Temple University's library databases here, and you can browse the list by subject or by content type to identify the most relevant databases.

After you've located a relevant article by searching the catalog, the next step is to leave the catalog in order to access the content.  You can find articles via the catalog, but to actually view them you need to visit the databases that contain them.

In your search results for articles, you may see links that say "Online", "View full-text PDF", "Get PDF", and/or "Read Online:

While you can click on some of those links to immediately jump to the content, we recommend that instead, you click on the article title to first open the full catalog record.  In the full record, look for the section with the header "View Online":

In the example above, the article is available in three different databases.  Clicking on the name of each database will take you outside of the library catalog to access the article in that database.  In most cases, you will first encounter a login screen where you will need to enter your TU NetAccess ID and password before being redirected to the article.

Every database platform is slightly different, but in the vast majority of cases you will be able to read the article online, download a copy, generate a permalink to it, and generate an auto-formatted citation for it.