The Library – Library Subject Support

8th September 20238th September 2023

Resource in Focus: OUP Law Trove

OUP Law Trove has become part of Newcastle Law School life. For any new students joining us this year, what is it? Well, it’s a collection of e-books you will need to support your learning in the core modules of your degree programme.

This Oxford University Press e-book resource contains most of the essential, recommended and background reading titles you will find listed in your Newcastle Law School module handbooks. You can also find these on the Law Library shelves, and having these books available online too can be really convenient to you as a student.

If you’re asking yourself if you need to buy your course texts for 2023/24 then we can’t answer that question for you. The answer really depends on you. Ask yourself: can you work with e-books? Do you prefer to have your own copy of a book so you can fold pages, write notes in the margins or use a highlighter to annotate the text (*librarians across the world gasp in horror!*). Can the University Library provide a copy of the book you need to use? (We’ll answer that for you! We can’t provide a copy of every single book to every single student even if we wanted to.) We do advise you to try OUP Law Trove to see how easy it is to access, and how versatile it can be (including annotating the text!). It may just save you spending money on books where you don’t need to.

OUP Law Trove is mobile responsive, catering for those students with mobile devices. You can also use a Campus PC, or borrow a laptop from one of the libraries to access this resource.

An image of the OUP Law Trove homepage: https://www.oxfordlawtrove.com/

Logging in
You can access OUP Law Trove directly via Library Search (log in with your Campus ID & password), via your Reading Lists in your Canvas modules, and directly too. You can also go to OUP Law Trove and use the ‘Sign in via your Institution’ option in the left-hand login box on the homepage, and search for Newcastle University.

An image showing the Sign in via your Institution login option for OUP Law Trove.

Further guidance on logging in is provided by OUP in this video (1:05 mins):

Searching
From the OUP Law Trove home page you can immediately select to view those titles included in our subscription.

You can search OUP Law Trove by subject by using the browse option from the home page, or search by term for any author, title or keyword.

An image of the OUP Law Trove homepage with the Subject and Search options highlighted.

NB The results retrieved from either search will include all chapters and books related to your subject or search term, in alphabetical order.

Using the options in the left hand menu, you can narrow your choices by searching for a term within your results, by selecting the format of the results you want to see, or the availability (it makes sense to select those that are unlocked or free if you have not selected to view those titles included in our subscription) and updating your search.

An image of the refine or narrow your choices options within OUP Law Trove, i.e. by term, book or chapter, or availability (available or free).

Further guidance on accessing and navigating books within Law Trove is provided by OUP in these videos (2:28 mins and 2:41 mins):

Personalisation
You can create a Personal Profile to experience the full functionality of OUP Law Trove, including bookmarking and annotating (without writing on your books!). Click the ‘Sign In or Create’ button on the top menu bar and follow the instructions to set up your profile.

Once active you can access your saved content, searches and annotations quickly and easily.

Further information on the benefits of creating and using the Personal Profiles feature is provided by OUP in this video (1:54 mins):

Reading Lists and Handouts
You may find your module teaching staff are using the DOI: for a specific book or chapter from your Reading List or module handout. What’s a DOI? A Digital Object Identifier. It’s a ‘permalink’ (permanent link) to the specific materials you need to read and looks like a weblink (which it is, essentially). If it doesn’t directly link to OUP Law Trove then add https://dx.doi.org/ to create the full DOI link. You will still be asked to login using your Newcastle University Campus ID & password to gain access to the materials.

An image of OUP Law Trove which indicates the availability of DOI: links for both books and chapters.

Tips
Search OUP Law Trove directly for your resources if you can. Library Search and your module Reading Lists are linking to most of the books, and some of the chapters available, but not all. You may find more resources by performing a keyword search; the results could show a useful chapter in another book that you would never have thought to search in.

You have access to some great employability and study skills information in OUP Law Trove too. Whether you are wondering what academic writing actually is, how to write a case note, how to prepare for a moot or dealing with an exam, there are materials in Trove to assist you alongside the Academic Skills Kit made available to you by the University, the University Library and the Academic Skills Team.

An image of book covers covering employability and academic skills.

Finally, scroll to the bottom of the contents page of a book to see if there are additional resources available:

An image of an example of external/additional resources available on the OUP website.

Further information on the online resources, including multiple choice questions (MCQs), is provided by OUP in this video (1:47 mins):

We think you will find OUP Law Trove very useful in supporting your studies at Newcastle Law School. If you have any feedback or questions, please leave a comment or contact libraryhelp@ncl.ac.uk.

22nd August 202322nd August 2023

AM Modules – Empire Online and Church Missionary Society Periodicals 1 & 2

After a trial of several AM (Adam Matthews) Collections modules earlier in 2023, the Library has acquired two new resources – Empire Online, and Church Missionary Society Periodicals 1 & 2.

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Church Missionary Society Periodicals digitises publications from the CMS, South American Missionary Society and Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, encompassing issues from 1816-2009. Thousands of pages with detailed metadata enable new research opportunities in the fields of missiology and world Christianity, as well as a unique perspective on global history and cultural encounter.

The documents include reports on missionary work, serialised journals and letters, birth, marriage, and death announcements, fiscal reports and reflections on worship, making them an extremely rich source.

You can access the Church Missionary Society Periodicals 1 & 2 via Library Search here.

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Empire Online is an interactive collection of primary source documents sourced from leading archives around the world. Material in the collection spans five centuries, charting the story of the rise and fall of empires; from the explorations of Columbus, Captain Cook, and others, right through to de-colonisation in the second half of the twentieth century and debates over American Imperialism.

The wealth of documents spans five centuries and includes manuscripts, rare printed materials, letterbooks, periodicals, diaries, photographs and more.

Material in Empire Online has been sourced from a wide range of reputable institutions, with a particularly strong core of documents and images from the British Library. However, the focus is not only on the British Empire; there are a number of documents and secondary resources which relate the story of the Empire from the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German points of view, as well as that of indigenous peoples from Africa, India and North America.

You can access the Empire Online database via Library Search here.

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For both databases, you could start by heading to the Introduction tab for an overview on the collection, a handy tour of the website and its key features, and information on copyright:

The Documents tab allows you to browse through the full range of documents available in the collections, and includes handy filters to narrow your results Document Type (Empire Online only), Library (Empire Online only), Title (CMS Periodicals only), and Issue Date (CMS Periodicals only).

Church Missionary Society Periodicals Documents

Additionally, the Advanced Search is available and allows researchers to build more complex searches:

Empire Online offers an option to view the sources in a chronological format, and the CMS Periodicals offers an option to view the sources on a map format:

Both databases offer extensive support, search tips and advice under the Help tab.

Please get in touch if you need any more support using the databases, but we hope that they will be of interest to your research!

18th August 202318th August 2023

Oxford University Press Very Short Introductions

In the library we love these short guides from OUP who provide a variety of great concise books on lots of different topics.

We’ve recently updated this collection so it includes to most recent publications from OUP published in 2022 and 2023.

This series offers concise introductions to a diverse range of subjects—from artificial intelligence to folk music to medical ethics—in 35,000 words or less.

Each one of these big little books provides intelligent and serious introductions written by experts who combine facts, analysis, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make even the most challenging topics highly readable.

On our catalogue, Library Search you can search by keywords like in the screenshot below so “very short introduction” and browse through or add in Oxford to add in results for that publisher. Re-sort your results to “newest” if you’d like to browse through the latest ones added to our collection.

Or visit the OUP Very Short Introductions website directly and then filter using the subject categories. OUP have arranged the titles under headings such as Medicine and Health, Arts and Humanities, Law, Social Sciences

if you are accessing off campus then once you’re on the OUP site please click “sign in” (on the left hand menu and select Newcastle University from the list to enter your Campus ID and password.)

Oxford University Press also have a podcast you can subscribe to about titles and topics in this collection.

17th August 202317th August 2023

Art and Architecture Archive

We are delighted we now have access to Art and Architecture Archive (parts 1 and now 2 after a sucessful trial) from Proquest.

This is a full-text archive of consumer and trade magazines comprising of key research materials in subjects relating to art, architecture, architectural history, art history, cultural history, fine art, industrial design, photography, social history and visual arts.

Coverage is from the late-nineteenth century to the twenty-first. The issues are scanned as full colour images with each article indexed so you can quickly find the topic you are looking for.

We think these are an invaluable source, as a historical record of the art and architecture industries. Through reviews, advertisements, exhibition listings, and awards, you can investigate the careers of major artists and architects, as well as the history of the commercialization and marketing of art/architecture.

You can search across both collections looking for individuals, topics, movements, industry news items, interviews with major artists, or features about technological developments, as well as photographs / illustrations, architectural plans, statistics, and reviews.

You can search or browse the archive in various ways (use Advanced Search to see all search options), and retrieve many types of content.

You also might want to browse by publication so check out Building Design, Architects’ journal or The Architectural Review. Click on publications on the Proqest website and you’ll see an A-Z list.

Screenshot of front cover of Building Design

Screenshoot of front cover of The Architectural Review

28th November 20221st December 2022

Spotlighting Scopus and ScienceDirect: new features from Elsevier.

Scopus

The Scopus Search Results page has been redesigned, the following new and exciting features include: –

Search functionality on search result page itself
User-friendly filters/facets and customized different views on how the results are displayed
A new an intuitive page layout

Why not try the new version for yourself! Just perform a Scopus search then click on the ‘try the new version’ link at the banner at the top of the page. If you want to know more just click on ‘take a tour’. You can easily return to old version by clicking on the link ‘return to old version’.

If you want to know what else Scopus have done in 2022, have a look on their website.

We are hosting a Scopus webinar on December 8, which is a great opportunity to come and find out more about getting the most from the database.

Scopus webinar booking

ScienceDirect

The Topics pages on ScienceDirect have been compiled into a new homepage, and offers a way to:-

Search all Topics pages
Search and browse within specific subject areas
Register to receive recommended articles based on your search activity.

The extracts provided on ScienceDirect Topics are written by experts and are drawn from foundational and reference materials. The source materials used include major reference works such as encyclopaedias, journal review articles, monographs, book series and handbooks.

For a list of ScienceDirect topics, have a look on their website.

13th July 202213th July 2022

New resource now available: Mass Observation 2000s

We’re pleased to announce that we have now added the latest 2000s module to the very popular Mass Observation Online resource. We already had access to the 1980s and 1990s modules.

About Mass Observation

Mass Observation is a pioneering project which documents the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers (‘observers’) to write about their lives, experiences and opinions. Still growing, it is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK. This latest instalment is a great resource for anyone researching aspects of the early 21st century. It complements our existing access to the original Mass Observation project archive, which covers 1937-1967.

2000s collection

This module has a strong emphasis on technological advancements and the changing means of communication that came with the new Millennium. Highlights include the Millennium Diaries, the events of September 11^th and environmental concerns, as well as detailing the everyday lives, thoughts, and opinions of respondents.

Searching and browsing

Screenshot of filtering options — Filtering options

You can browse or search Mass Observation in various ways.

Browse by directive: browse the different directives (surveys), which are arranged chronologically and by topic.

Browse all documents: browse all the individual documents, and then further filter your search as required.

You can also use the Advanced search box at the top of the screen to search for specific topics.

Help

Screenshot of research tools — Research tools

We’d recommend you start by reading through the Introduction (top menu) which explains more about the project and the different document types. If you’re looking for ideas about how to make use of it, take a look at the Research Tools, which includes essays, videos, exhibitions and chronological timelines.

Note that as over half the materials in these collections (mainly the pre-2000s modules) are handwritten, the database enables Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) to help you search. We would recommend you read about how HTR works, to help you get the best out of the database, in the Introduction section.

21st June 202221st June 2022

EDI Summer Reading Challenge

Abstract colourful shapes. Text reads: Summer Reading Challenge, libguides.ncl.ac.uk/edi.

Summer is the perfect time to embark on a journey, broaden your horizons and soak up a different culture or perspective. So, the team behind our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) library guide is delighted to re-launch a summer EDI reading challenge.

Since its launch in autumn 2020, we’ve been using the guide to curate and highlight print and online resources of all kinds, relating to EDI themes, such as those listed in the University’s EDI priorities. We’ve compiled themed sections and monthly highlights of books, films, social media, archives, podcasts and more, and encouraged suggestions from staff and students across the University to help us develop our collections.

So why not take up our Summer EDI Reading Challenge?

Recommend and Review

Look through our themed reading lists on our Recommended by You & Blog page and explore life through a new lens! We hope you’ll find some inspiration, but we’d also love to receive your recommendations too, and we’ll be highlighting them on the guide.

You’re welcome to use the online form on the lib guide. If you can give us a few words to explain your choice, that would be great! You can see what people recommended last year on our EDI in Literature page.

Social Media

We’ll be running a promotional campaign on social media throughout summer, using the hashtags #ReadingForPleasure and #EDIReadingChallenge. Please look out for these and retweet/repost wherever possible.

Have a great Summer everyone! We’ll leave you with the inspired words of the Poet, Derek Walcott:

I read; I travel; I become.

25th March 202225th March 2022

Sound and vision: introducing our new audiovisual resources guide

Photo by TheRegisti on Unsplash; Harald Müller on Unsplash; insung yoon on Unsplash

Where can I find pictures relating to transport which I can use in my project? How do I find out what was broadcast on British television and radio on a particular day in the 1970s? Where are the best places to find examples of digital art? I need audio clips of scary sounds for my presentation – where to start? Are there any interesting oral histories in my subject area? How do I reference a podcast? I’ve found an ideal picture online, but I don’t know where it’s from – what can I do? Is there an authoritative list of famous music plagiarism cases anywhere, including audio clips?

Screenshot of oral histories from the British Library — British Library oral histories selection

You can find the answers to these, and many more intriguing questions, on our brand new guide to finding and using audiovisual resources.

We’ve updated and expanded our old images guide, and included new databases and resources for finding films and television programmes, plus audio content such as radio programmes, sound clips, podcasts and oral histories.

We’ve also updated the original still images section, which helps you find images of all genres and subjects, such as anatomy, archaeology, architecture…. and all other letters of the alphabet!

Need more help?

Keyword searching isn’t always the best way to search for audiovisual content, so if you want to find an image which looks like another one, search by colour, or find exactly what you want on Box of Broadcasts, visit our guide.

Finally, if you’re unsure whether you’re permitted to use an audiovisual resource in your assignment, and/or how to cite it, we can help with that too. Our guide contains plenty of helpful advice on using and citing audiovisual materials, and we’ve tried to include links to collections and databases which are licensed for educational use where possible (but please do check the terms and conditions in each case).

3rd March 20224th March 2022

3 places to look for images for Architecture, Planning & Landscape

We know students and researchers in SAPL use images for all sorts of reasons. You might know some websites which provide some good pictures or maybe you just Google to find some. But for academic work you’ll want to ensure they are good quality, you can reference them correctly and they adhere to any Copyright terms and conditions.

You can use some of the resources from the Library to look for pictures of buildings, plans, projects and architectural photographs.

This help video covers the 3 main places we’d advise you look.

https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/2713acc4-e8ec-4f3c-8052-15602a5bbed

Detail Inspiration and it’s 3000 projects spanning over 30 years.

Architects Journal Buildings Library and its 1900 projects spanning the last 20 years.

Art and Architecture Archive; a full text archive of magazines including Architects Journal and Architectural Review.

These articles have been indexed so that you can specifically search for images and photographs.

12th January 202212th January 2022

Resources for English Literature

We’ve got a wide range of specialist information resources for English literature students. We know it can be rather overwhelming knowing where to start, so this blog post gives you a whistle stop tour of what you can find.

Library Search and your reading lists are great starting points for finding books, journals and other resources for your modules, but we’ve highlighted below some more specialised resources which you’ll want to explore.

Interdisciplinary academic research databases

Interdisciplinary bibliographic databases, such as Scopus or JSTOR are a great starting point after Library Search, as they enable you to discover secondary literature, irrespective of the subject area, and have really helpful features to help you focus your search. This can be useful if your topic covers more than one subject area, or if you’re trying to scope your topic broadly. Content includes journal articles, conference papers, book chapters and reviews.

Specialist English literature research databases

Literature Online (LION) is an indispensable database for researching English literature. It comprises three main sections:

literary criticism: search articles from over 400 journals, together with the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature
primary texts: 350,000 works of poetry, prose and drama from the 8th century to the present
reference: encylopedias, topic overviews and author biographies

Screenshot of the Literature Online homepage, showing the basic search options. — LION search screen

You can search all of these information types at once with the All button selected, or focus on a particular section by choosing the appropriate button.

If you haven’t used LION before, or would like a refresher, a good way to get an insight into the content, and different ways to search, is to try out the sample searches in this LION guide (Links to an external site.).

Film and Television Literature Index

If you’re researching a film or television studies topic, including literary adapations, then you may find Film and Television Literature Index to be useful. It includes articles from academic journals and film magazines, and coverage is focused on film and television theory, writing, production and reviews.

Digitised archives

Screen shot of a verse manuscript from Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape. — Romanticism: Life, Literature, Landscape

There is a vast range of digitised literary archives available, and it would be impossible to list every one, but we have picked out some major resources on the English Literature subject guide, in the General literary resources > archives section. These include:

Literary Print Culture

Perdita Manuscripts

Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape

Click on the links above for blog posts giving more information about these fascinating archives.

We also have a fascinating range of historic and contemporary literary archives in our own Special Collections section: please browse the web site by subject to find out more and read here for how to consult items and get further advice.

Literary texts: historic book collections online

As well as the many individual literary print and e-books in our collections, we also have access to several major online collections of literary texts from different historical periods, which feature in-depth contextual information, facsimile images of the original texts, and sophisticated search and analytical features.

From Early English Books Online (EEBO) and Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), we have access to almost every book published in English from the fifteenth to nineteenth century, complemented by other specialist collections, such as Oxford Scholarly Editions Online.

Our blog post gives an overview of five of the major collections. You can find all the individual books from these collections on Library Search, but we recommend searching and browsing the databases themselves (for example, EEBO) to get the best searching and viewing experience.

Audiovisual resources: Box of Broadcasts and Drama Online

Box of Broadcasts (BoB) contains over two million programmes from over 75 television and radio channels. Coverage mostly dates from 2007 to the present day. It’s a great resource for finding literary adaptations on television, film and radio, together with documentaries about writers, and arts review broadcasts. Find out how to get the best out of BoB via our BoB blog post.

The Library has purchased various collections from the Drama Online database, which comprises the text of over 3,000 plays, from ancient Greek drama to contemporary works, together with contextual works relating to drama theory and practice. We have also recently bought several video collections, featuring films of major theatrical productions from the National Theatre, Globe and Royal Shakespeare Company.

Read more about this exciting platform and the very latest content on our blog post.

English Literature Subject Guide

This posting is just a taster of all the great resources available for your subject area. To access them and find out more, visit your Subject Guide and explore the databases and other subject specific resources which we’ve curated for English literature.

There are also subject guides for related subject areas which you may find useful, including English language and linguistics, and Film Studies.

Our Resource Guides point to different types of information, such as newspapers, images and statistics.