As well has holding print versions of many journals, QM provides online access to more than 10,000 electronic journals. SFX allows linking to these e-journals from MetaLib and certain databases, as well as providing an A-Z list of e-journal titles that the Library has access to. You can look for e-journals via the A-Z list in 4 different ways:

The Library signs a licence with each of the publishers of electronic journals that permits certain activities and forbids others. All QM staff and students should ensure that they are familiar with College Council Regulations on the use of Information Technology before using the Library's e-resources.

• Download the Library's E-Journals and SFX leaflet [PDF, 85KB] for more information.

FAQs

What are e-Journals?

The majority of electronic journals (commonly known as e-journals) are electronic versions of print journals (e.g. Nature, New Scientist, The Economist, etc) that you can access via the Internet. However, new e-only journals, i.e. journals that are not produced in print, are also appearing.

e-Journals include all of the content that appears in the printed version of the journal, along with extra features such as links to related material, supplementary data, video clips, alerting services etc, that can't be included in a paper journal. e-Journals also tend to be more up-to-date than print journals as articles can be made available as soon as they are ready, and increasing numbers of e-Journals include advance online publication (AOP) of material not yet available in print.

Which e-Journals do I have access to?

e-Journals are available on the Internet but that does not mean that they are free! Journal publishers make their money by selling access to the contents of their journals whether it is in print or electronic versions.

The SFX A-Z list of e-journals that QM has full-text access to changes all the time as new titles are added and others are removed and so it's worth checking it regularly.

What is SFX?

SFX is a system that allows context sensitive linking between MetaLib, as well as SFX compatible databases such as Web of Knowledge, PubMed and IBSS, and the Library's e-journal collection.

The SFX button or the icon appear on both the Library's A-Z list of electronic journals and in the lists of search results in MetaLib and certain databases. If you click on these, an SFX menu will be displayed, with a link to the full text of the individual article or, if full text is not available, then SFX will offer you alternative ways to find it – either by searching the QM Library catalogue to see if we have a print copy of the journal or by searching the catalogues of other libraries (via COPAC, a union catalogue of the British Library and some major academic libraries).

Do I need a username and password?

If you are looking at e-journals from a computer on campus then you usually won't need a username or password to access them, as you are generally logged in automatically via the IP address of the computer you are logged into. However, you will need to use usernames and passwords to access some e-journals. Click on the icon next to the journal title in the A-Z list, or contact e-journals help for more information.

Can I access e-journals if I am off-campus?

Many e-journals can be accessed off-campus using an Athens username and password.

A number of other e-journals can be accessed from off-campus via the College's proxy server. You will need an AthensDA-enabled Teaching Service Account in order to use the proxy server. Undergraduate and taught postgraduate students are issued with these accounts automatically by Computing Services but staff and research postgraduates will need to contact Computing Services to request an account.

The first time that you try to access one of these titles via SFX you will be re-directed to the login screen for the proxy server. If you login using your Teaching Service username and password you will then be re-directed to the e-journal that you want to go to. You should only need to login to the proxy server once during a session.

If you have already logged in to MetaLib you should not need to login again to access e-journals using the proxy server.

How do I view and print articles?

The full text of articles in electronic journals is usually available in two different formats:

• PDF (Portable Document Format)
  PDF provides a facsimile of the print version of an article and it is the best format to use if you want to print the article. If you want to look at PDF files from off-campus then you may need to install the Adobe Acrobat Reader software on your computer. You can download this for free from the Adobe web site.
• HTML
  This format lets you look at the article as a web page. It allows you to link to different parts of the article and, sometimes, to cited articles. However, it is not recommended if you want to print the article.

How do I find articles on a particular subject?

At the moment it's not possible to search all of the e-journals for articles on a particular subject. However, you can use MetaLib to search up to 10 databases at the same time for articles that you may then be able to access, via SFX, in the e-journal collection.

You can also search individual databases either from within MetaLib or directly via the links within MetaLib. The Library runs regular drop-in training sessions on using MetaLib as well as specific databases such as Web of Knowledge, PubMed and IBSS.

Can I access e-Journals that are not on the Library's list?

The tables of contents and article abstracts of most e-journals are freely available and so you can access these. Access to the full-text version of articles in e-journals are generally only available to subscribers and so if a title is not on the Library's A-Z list then it is unlikely that you will be able to access it.

There are increasing numbers of Open Access (OA) e-journals for which the content is freely available online. Notable examples of high quality, peer-reviewed Open Access e-journals are those published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS). There is also a Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) that lists nearly 3,000 titles. The full content of the old issues of some e-journals, e.g. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and many titles hosted by HighWire Press, are now also being made freely available. Many Open Access titles appear in the library's A-Z list.

Current Awareness

You can set up alerts on MetaLib that will inform you when new articles appear in databases that you have selected.

In addition, many publishers offer free alerting services. Users can either request that the contents pages of new journal issues are sent to them by e-mail as soon as, or even before, they are published, or subscribe to an RSS feed. You can usually register for an alert for an e-journal even if the Library does not subscribe to it.

You can also set up alerts on Zetoc, a table of contents service from the British Library. Zetoc indexes 20,000 current journals and around 16,000 conference proceedings published per year. The database covers 1993 to date, and is updated on a daily basis.

How can I get more help with e-journals?

If you have any more questions about e-journals or if you have any problems accessing an e-journal or SFX please contact e-journals help.