Problem: How to access Ms. Magazine archives?

Problem

Last month, I got the following research question from Prof. Ummni Khan (Law and Legal Studies):

     I'm trying to find early feminist writing that is not academic (so magazines mostly) from
     the 1980s or early 1990s that addresses the topic of rap music & lyrics, specifically the 
     argument that rap music is degrading to women / demeaning or encourages violence.

     I know there was quite a bit of this from my memory, but I can’t figure out how to search
     for magazines. I was thinking that Ms. Magazine must have articles about this topic, but  
     I don't know if there's a way to search their archive?

     Do you have any suggestions on how I might do this?

     Thanks so much for your help! 

Solution

The short answer to Ummni’s question is, “Use Academic Onefile to search for back issues of Ms. Magazine.” Academic Onefile is one of the Gale databases to which we subscribe.

But how did I figure this out?

I used another database, Ulrichsweb, to determine where Ms. Magazine is indexed and then tried several databases to verify which offered back issues for the period that interests Ummni.

Never heard of Ulrichsweb? Ulrichsweb is a source of bibliographic and access information for over 300,000 serials. This short video (above) explains how to use Ulrichsweb to find "hard to find" sources in the library, i.e., how to identify the database or databases in which to search for a particular publication.

Try it. It will change your life (just kidding, but it might sharpen your search skills a bit).

PS: This would be the basis for an asynchronous research skills activity for a third- or fourth-year class.