Looking for love in all the wrong places: Accessing sexual and reproductive health information via the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature.

Abstract

The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature (RGPL) has been described as a cultural barometer. It supports scholars of history and culture by providing access to ideas circulated via the mass media in earlier times, but its own coverage and indexing practices also reveal attitudes and values toward issues of the time. The Progressive Era (1900-1924) coincides with the founding and growth of the RGPL. Examining how the Guide directed readers’ attention to matters of sexual and reproductive health in its first quarter century demonstrates changes in social attitudes and has implications for scholarly work. The array of index terms required to locate information on this topic indicates both barriers to information access for contemporary readers as well as challenges for present-day scholars concerned with recovering information of the era.