Monthly Archives: November 2012

Consumer Reports provides readers with information to make safe and smart purchases – independent ratings and reviews of products and services, and identification of key product features.  Household crises frequently bring patrons to the library in search of the magazine, and it’s a pleasure to share that they can access it online, free of cost, from home or even while standing in the appliance section of Lowe’s!

Through NC LIVE, library patrons can access full-text articles from the Buying Guide from 1999 – present, from the magazine itself from 1991 – present, and from the Travel Letter from 1997 – 2002.  From the NC LIVE home page, click on the link at the far left of the page, just below “Search by Title”, where it says Click here to find a journal, magazine, or newspaper by title.  When prompted, you will need to select your library system (Chatham County Public Library) from the pull-down menu and enter your entire library card number, without spaces between the numbers.  At the next screen, type Consumer Reports in the search box, and click the radio button for “Journals Only.”  On the results page, simply click on the link for MasterFILE Complete below the title for the Consumer Reports publication of your choice.

You can browse through entire issues by clicking on the year of your choice at the far right of the page, then selecting the month.  When you find an article title of interest, click on the title for more information, or select PDF Full Text in order to see the article exactly as it appears in the magazine – complete with charts and photos.  You may download the article or choose from other options at the far right of the page in a column labeled “Tools”:  Print, Email, Add to a folder, and Save, among others.

You may also search within Consumer Reports to discover all articles on a subject.  Click “Search within this publication” at the far right of the page, just above the column of available years.  The search bar next to the EBSCOhost button will be formatted to restrict your search to Consumer Reports.  Your next move should be to add “and” followed by whatever your given subject of interest is.  For instance, in order to search all available issues of the magazine for information about printers, the search bar should look like this:  JN “Consumer Reports” and printers.

Once you’ve performed a search, note that you can set limits on the left side of the page – you can make changes so you only see results published between the years of your choice, and you may find it helpful to click on “Subject” to make your search more specific.