Hailing itself as the first free online magazine search service, FindArticles.com provides full‐text access to over 300 magazines. Articles are available dating back to 1998.
The initial search screen allows users to search for a keyword or phrase in all available magazines or in just those in a particular topic area.
The topic areas include:
arts and entertainment;
automotive, business, computers and technology;
health and fitness;
home and family;
news and society;
reference/editorial; and
sports.
The search tips inform users that truncation is not supported, but that they can use quotation marks for exact phrases and can use + or ‐ signs in place of Boolean AND or NOT. Without these modifications, search terms will be subject to the default Boolean OR.
Searchers can peruse a listing of all available publications either by subject or in an alphabetical listing, and then perform a keyword search within a single magazine. What is not offered is a listing of available issues, meaning that the tables of contents cannot be browsed.
Also, only selected issues of a magazine or selected parts of an issue may be available. For instance, when I noticed that Library Journal was included, I did a search for Library Journal’s “Web watch” columns ([+“Library Journal” +”Web Watch”])but only eight of those columns appeared. I then searched by topic for other “Web watch” columns that I knew of and got no hits.
FindArticles.com includes mainstream popular magazines, such as Better Homes & Gardens, Black Enterprise, Essence, Harper’s, Parents, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian and Scientific American.
The service also provides access to selected scholarly journals, including Academy of Management Review, Feminist Studies, Foreign Affairs, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Sex Roles.
Professional and trade magazines are well represented. For example, users can locate articles in Broadcasting & Cable, Food & Drink Weekly, Lancet, Library Journal, Mobile Phone News, Travel Agent, and US Banker.
Each article has a few related terms or general subject headings assigned to it,all of which are hyperlinked. Users can follow the links for these terms to locate additional articles on broader or related topics.
Searchers can print or e‐mail articles that they would like to keep or read later. The e‐mail function requires input of the recipient’s e‐mail address, the sender’s name and the sender’s e‐mail address.
A space for comments is also provided. A message will arrive in your mailbox with a line “Sue Jones [sjones@emailprovider.com] thought you’d find this article useful”, which seems a bit odd if you are sending items to yourself. This might be a useful feature, though, if you are sending articles to friends, family or colleagues. The title of the article and the URL for the article are given, and any comments added follow.
In addition to the limits in coverage and scope, users may be distracted by the sponsor information found in the borders and banners. Result sets are not sorted in any discernable order, and the system also currently has no “back to results” type of button. I sent a message to their user services response center and received a reply that indicated they are working on adding this feature.
FindArticles.com may serve as a supplemental database, particularly for libraries without databases which cover trade magazines. FindArticles.com may also be a useful starting point for researchers who cannot access various library‐owned databases remotely.
