FAQs from our Ask a Librarian ServiceQ: What is an ejournal?
A: Simply, an ejournal is an issue of a journal (an academic publication) that appears in a digital format. Ejournals may be digital copies of publications that also put out print issues, or they may be digital-only.
Q: Is an ejournal "as good" as a print journal to use for research?
A: Logically from the above definition, an ejournal is "as good" as the print version to use, as many journals now have digital-only publications! What matters is the content of the journal.
Q: Why can I only access some issues or years on some journals?
A: What we have access to online depends on our subscription. For some journals, we subscribe to the latest content. For others, we have what is called an embargo, meaning we can be a few months or a few years behind the most current content.
If there is an article you want, but we don't have the newest content, you can always request through interlibrary loan (ILL). To learn more about ILL, visit https://www.augusta.edu/library/greenblatt/services/docdel.php
Tip! Use quotation marks if you know the exact title of the journal, e.g. "Journal of Higher Education"
To find eJournals, use the Find Journals feature in our library catalog, GIL-Find.
You can search for an exact title, for example, "American Journal of Public Health" (Tip! Always put exact titles in quotes so it knows you are searching a title) OR use keywords to search for journals that have those keywords in their title or title records, for example, rural public health.
On the results page, you can see some information without clicking in, such as the Title, Publisher, Years Active (NOTE: when a date appears before a "-" that is the year it started, while after the "-" is when it ended. In the above, we see they the first result says "-1927" which means it ended in 1927), and how to access the journal. If it is available online, you will see the green "Online access" link.
Once you click on a title on your results page, you will see the journal record. This gives you information about this journal as well as ways to access it.
Pay attention to the options for View Online. A few things to note:
To access an ejournal, click on the database you wish to access it through in the record.
I want to access this journal through EBSCOhost Medline with Full Text, because it has coverage from 1971, so I click that link in the record.
To find articles, you have two options:
1. Browse by date: If you know which issue you want to look in, you can browse by year and issue number to see all articles in a particular issue. This is best if you have a citation you are tracing or want to browse the most recent issues.
2. Search with a publication: If you want to search for specific keywords within articles in this journal, you can use this option. This is most helpful if you are limiting your search to specific journals, but are not sure of which articles you need.