Well, now you can tell the difference between scholarly and popular periodicals, but how do you get to the articles published in them?
You use a periodical database.
We defined the term database in chapter 3. A database is a collection of information stored on a computer that is organized for efficient search and retrieval.
The online catalog is a database of information that you use to find out what books we have in our library and what journals we subscribe to, among other things.
Periodical databases contain information about the articles published in periodicals. You use a periodical database to search through articles from many different periodicals at once to find the ones you need for your research.
From this point forward in this chapter, I'm going to refer to periodical databases as just databases. Just be aware that not all databases (for example, the online catalog!) are periodical databases.
