Research Guides: Periodicals Guide: Find Journals: the Basics

Getting Started

You likely will start your journal search online, through our Catalog or the Journal Finder.
Refer to our Research Guides for help finding journals online, or visit the Database Tutorial guide to look for online publications.
When you find a journal, newspaper, or magazine available in print at Geisel, you're ready to locate it in the library!
Note: for the purposes of this guide, when we refer to "journals," we also include "magazines," since they are shelved together.

Journals are filed alphabetically by title.
The "A's" start at the back of the Lower Level (the corner closest to the Periodicals info desk, to the right side when facing the desk)
Journal titles A - L are on one side of the Lower Level
Journals titles M - Z are on the other side (closer to the bathrooms)
Each shelf has signs at the end indicating what letter range is shelved there

Journals are published by volume and number. Each issue has its own vol. and no.
Typically, each year a journal or magazine that is published will be a new volume, and each issue that comes out that year will have its own number.
- Ex: The New Yorker is published weekly.
  - The issue published Oct. 21, 2019 is vol. 95, no. 32. [v.95, no.32 (Oct.21, 2019)]
  - The issue published Nov. 4, 2019 is vol. 95, no. 34 [(v.95, no.34 (Nov.4, 2019)]
  - The issue published Dec. 21, 2020 is vol. 96, no. 41 [v.96, no.41 (Dec. 21, 2020)]
Journal issues within a title are shelved in order of earliest publication (ex: vol. 1, no. 1) to most recent.
Some journal issues have been bound together (into what looks like a book).
- You may need to flip through the book to find the issue you want.
Other journals will be in red boxes, with the volume & numbers labeled on the box.

Newspapers are also shelved alphabetically by title in the stacks with journals.