141 12.10 Trade Periodicals

Characteristics that can identify a periodical as Trade:

• Geared towards very specific audiences, usually managers or administrators in business, finance, and industry

• Issued weekly or monthly to take advantage of fast-breaking changes in products or technology

• Often contain regular columns of news and commentary, as well as lengthier articles about current issues and trends of interest to people in the field

• May be written by specialists or journalists. Examples of better known trade periodicals include Beverage Industry, U.S. Banker, Progressive Farmer, Museums Journal, and Aviation Week & Space Technology

Articles in trade periodicals may be a bit more difficult to find since many of these publications are not indexed by the tools found in library collections. However, some databases that can be helpful include Business Source Premier, Lexis/Nexis and ProQuest Newsstand.

Of course, the websites of the industry associations themselves may offer archives of their trade periodical with a searchable database of past articles. This is obviously a first-stop for any searcher trying to locate trade periodical articles.