The basics of online searching for bibliographic citations are presented through use of the "Economic Literature Index" (ELI), which is available as File 139 on Dialog Information Services. This article focuses on the choice of media for bibliographic searches, search strategies, and the selection of alternative databases, such as "Social Scisearch" and "Abstracts of Working Papers in Economics (AWPE)". Six major types of retrieval techniques are addressed: (1) author searches; (2) searches for words in titles or abstracts; (3) searches using keywords or subject descriptor codes; (4) searches that combine all three techniques; (5) searches for articles that cite a particular article; and (6) retrieval of citations and abstracts of working papers. Searching examples for specific topics such as efficiency wage theory, comparable worth, productivity studies, and auction theory are described, along with the relationship of ELI subject descriptor codes to the classification system used in the printed versions of the "Journal of Economic Literature" and "The Index of Economic Literature". Appendixes include an ELI file description, classification system descriptors and codes, and a sample search request form. (JHP)