I consider myself to be fairly good at doing research - I can run a search engine like no one's business, and I've never had problems finding books on even very specific topics.

One thing that I've never figured out, however, is how to do journal research.

As I see it, there are two kinds of journal research I'd like to do:

• I know the topic, but not what journal(s) in which to look
  
• I know the journal, even specific volumes, but not which libraries have it.
  

Any quick tips? I think that this is really becoming a stumbling block for me...

use a search engine like hotbot.com. Keyword search:

online historical journals in "quotes". Hit search button.

Check the box and refine the search by typing in more definitive keywords like "medieval europe" and search again. I found a lot of online stuff, but it is hard to get a little more specific than that without knowing exactly what you are looking for.

Hope this is helpful.

Any tips for doing this more conventionally? I need some motivation to keep going back to the library...

Again, thanks for the advice guys. I have at least a bit more to go on now...