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Finding Full Text: SPU and Beyond

Use this guide to find out how to get the full text of desired books and articles, beginning with the Overview.

the SPU Databases

Although some databases (just for example ProQuest Dissertations and the MLA International Bibliography) will return unpublished dissertations and theses, too, we'll focus here on Finding the Full Text of 1) the articles in periodicals (magazines, journals, etc.), 2) the essays in books, and 3) the books returned by a database search.

1) Finding the Full Text of an article in a periodical returned by a database:

The records returned by most databases will come with links designed to streamline the search for full text.  The links in an EBSCOhost database will be one or more of the following, as reproduced here in bold.  Those in a Proquest database will be similar:

  • HTML Full Text  and/or PDF Full Text (with the icons peculiar to each).  Clicking on links like these should take you to the full text directly.
  • Check For Full Text.  Clicking on this link will initiate a search of the Library catalog for the periodical (not always the very article) in question.  This means that, having followed that link, you may then have to make your way (by following subsequent links) from the former to the latter-as-described-by-the-database (in terms of volume number, year, issue number, page numbers, etc.).
  • Request via Interlibrary Loan.  Clicking on this link will populate an InterLibrary Loan request.

But before placing an InterLibrary Loan request consider

  • searching the catalogs of libraries in the vicinity (for example those of the University of Washington, Seattle University, or the public libraries) for the periodical in question. 

2) Finding the Full Text of an essay in a book returned by a database:

Just about everything in this record (pp. 145-159 IN:, the presence of ed[itors], the presence of a publisher (Oxford University Press), the lack of volume and issue numbers, and the phrase book article) indicates that what we're dealing with here is an essay or chapter in a book, sometimes called a book article:

Screenshot of a citation in a database for the essay "C.S. Lewis'sThe Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader' and Apuleius' Metamorphoses" by Jeff Winkle IN Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy published by Oxford University Press. The screenshot also includes a Request via Interlibrary Loan link below the citation. 

And to procure an essay in a book you need the book.  Thus, you would search (the Advanced Search area of) the Library catalog for the book, in this case Classical traditions in modern fantasy, edited by Benjamin Eldon Stevens:

Screenshot of Library catalog search boxes with the name Stevens and the Title "Classical traditions in modern fantasy" in Author and Title search boxes respectively. Below the search boxes are two search results: an e-version and a print version of the book Classical traditions in modern fantasy.

Note that, according to its Table of Contents as represented in those Library records, the book above does indeed contain the essay in question:

Screenshot of the table of contents screen for Classical traditions in modern fantasy from the Library catalog. The essay "C.S. Lewis's The voyage of the "Dawn Treader" and Apuleius' Metamorphoses" by Jeff Winkle is underlined.

To procure an essay or chapter from a book-on-paper-only owned by SPU you may either

  • pull the book off the shelf and check it out;
  • pull the book off the shelf and scan the essay or chapter yourself; or 
  • request that the essay or chapter (one per book!) be scanned and delivered by the Library.  To do this use the BOOK CHAPTER REQUEST FORM.

3) Finding the Full Text of a book returned by a database:

Follow the same steps as above for a book chapter.  You need the book:

 

Screenshot of a database record for the book The Lion's World: A Journey into the Heart of Narnia with the notation book underlined. Below the screenshot of the database is a screenshot of the book catalog and hits on a search for the phrase "journey into the heart of narnia".  Two results—an e-version and a print version of the book—are shown.