A journal (periodical) is a scholarly publication containing articles written by researchers, academics, practitioners and other experts. Journals usually focus on a specific discipline or field of study. Articles in journals often deal with very specific aspects of topics and in depth. Journals are like magazines: different issues or parts are published at regular intervals and each has the same title. Often each part has a number and all the parts for a year have a volume number. Usually several authors write articles per issue.
Most academic journals are not freely available via Google or Google Scholar. Libraries pay for access and publishers / vendors put together collections of journals for multiple years in databases. These collections may be country or subject specific or multidisciplinary.
There are different ways to search for journals and journal articles:
1. The icatalogue includes titles of journals as well as articles in journals that are accessible to UKZN staff and students. Use the advanced search option if you want to limit your search to journals. (If an article is not accessible to UKZN you can request a copy electronically via the interlibrary loan facility on icatalogue. It is better to check with a subject librarian first in case there is a technical problem or the article is accessible via another means.)
2. Search an academic database by topic, author or journal title. From the toolbar on the UKZN Library homepage, under Resources, select Databases A-Z.
3. Search the journals collection of the Library for a particular journal and / or article where details are known.
4. Search GoogleScholar. GoogleScholar can only provide free access to articles if publishers allow it but where UKZN pays for access to an article, click on the article title to get to the full text
5. Sabinet online is a collection of databases of South African resources. SA e Publications (full text journals) and ISAP ( index only) are two databases that index articles in most South African journals. Find Sabinet in the databases list under the Resources option on the library's website.
Interlibrary loans (ILL) is a service which supports and enhances the University Library collections when these fail to meet the needs of the students and academics. ILLs are transactions between the libraries of institutions in South Africa to facilitate access to information which extends beyond that held by any individual library, and there may be a cost involved.
Ask at the issue desk; send an email to ill@ukzn or click the request button in the catalogue.
Newspapers are also periodicals although generally not scholarly but may be a useful source of information. Most newspapers have online versions. SA media / SA News on Sabinet provides scanned newspaper articles from a wide range of South African newspapers going back several decades and the Newspaper gateway provides access to a useful range of newspapers from around the world. Iolnews is a useful online source of South African news. See also the UKZN Library's newspaper page.
Using iCatalogue
The Department of Higher Education approves South African journals for SAPSE accreditation purposes and also provides links to all accredited lists. These are available from the UKZN Research office home page.