Current Periodicals

The Current Periodicals area is located on the fourth floor of Alden Library. Altogether, the University Libraries subscribe to some 21,000 magazines, journals, and newspapers from around the world. The recent issues of most of them are in the Current Periodicals Collection. (Current issues of periodicals in Southeast Asia Studies, Fine Arts, Music and Dance, Health Sciences, and Government Documents are kept in those Library departments; all others are in Current Periodicals.)

There is no hard and fast rule as to how long something is considered "current" and kept in the current periodicals collection. To find out the location of a particular year of a periodical, search for the periodical by its title on ALICE and look at the "holdings" information.

ALICE will also show what years we have in microform, in bound volumes, and online in electronic format.

Most items in Current Periodicals are shelved on open shelves in alphabetical order. Some frequently-used titles (Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, etc.) may be requested at the Circulation Services desk.

Current periodicals may not be checked out. There are three photocopy machines available for use in the collection. Copies cost 7¢ per page if you use the magnetic cards called Vendacards (a machine for purchasing Vendacards is available at the Circulation Services desk) and 10¢ per page if you use coins.