If you are looking for information on cutting edge research and development to aid your studies there are a range of online resources available via Library Search.
Nature Communications is an open access, multidisciplinary journal dedicated to publishing high-quality research in all areas of the biological, health, physical, chemical, and Earth sciences. When exploring the content of Nature Communications you will find current research articles, reviews, and analysis, together with news, comments, FAQs, and editorials. Hot topics are brought together in collections like ‘Research in support of COP26’ and ‘Clean Air’ which can be extremely useful when thinking about literature and systematic reviews.
CAB Abstracts is a bibliographic database that covers significant research and development literature in the fields of agriculture, forestry, human health, nutrition, animal health, and the management and conservation of natural resources. Using targeted searching and filtering in CAB Abstracts will enable you to find information on current hot topics like climate change and Covid-19. It’s not all just about journal articles either, you will find access to videos, letters, conference proceedings, books, and reports. Collating this information and adding it to your reference management library will also help to broaden the scope of your research into a topic.
So, next time you see a hot topic related to your research appear on your social media feed, or in your favourite newspaper, head over to Library Search and use these resources to help you find out more about the current academic research and discussion.
The library has prioritised the acquisition of e-books and electronic resources during the Covid-19 pandemic with a myriad of titles now available via Library Search. The number of individual e-books purchased in 2020/21 was 4,640 and the number of e-books in collections purchased in 2020/21 was 383,771. In total, the number of e-books purchased in 2020/21 stands at 388,411.
E-book collections from Cambridge University Press, De Gruyter, and IGI Global are all accessible via Library Search where you can casually browse specific subject areas to see what is available. However, by being more specific and using author, title, and/or ISBN details within these collections you will be able to quickly navigate to the e-books that you need for your research and study.
A number of SAgE specific electronic collections are available. These include Packt Publishing, which offers a range of computing and IT related resources on cloud, data, programming, and web development, and the Royal Society of Chemistry e-book collection where you can download PDF chapters, or read online, from key chemistry and chemistry related texts.
Over the summer we moved to the newly revitalised Web of Science platform and the consensus amongst the Liaison Team is that it’s great! When asked the difference between Scopus and Web of Science and why you would use one database rather than the other, it is largely a question of personal preference and you when engaged in more advanced research you may need to use both databases.
If you are new to Web of Science the name may imply it is a science database, however it provides access to current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from approximately 21,000 peer-reviewed, high-quality scholarly journals published worldwide (including Open Access journals); over 205,000 conference proceedings; and over 104,000 editorially selected books within their Social Sciences Citation Index®, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index™ collections.
Web of Science also allows cited reference searching where you can navigate forward, backward, and through the literature, searching all disciplines and time spans to uncover all the information relevant to your studies.
Where to find Web of Science
You can access Web of Science from Library Search. This will help you to access the database successfully as you will be prompted to log in with your University username and password. Simply search for it by name from the Library website.
You will also find a link to on the Journals and Databases page of your Subject Guide, which provides a list and links to the recommended databases in your discipline.
Web of Science content
As we alluded to above, Web of Science includes much more than ‘science’ information, including:
life sciences, biomedical sciences
social sciences, arts & humanities.
strongest coverage of natural sciences, health sciences, engineering, computer science, materials sciences.
What’s new about Web of Science?
Start with this quick introduction to the new Web of Science to find out about the improved user interface and search functionality.
Get started with Web of Science with these advanced search tips tutorial and find out how you can be use the techniques most effectively in Web of Science.
Help with Web of Science
As the platform is new you may find that the database automatically begins with a guided tour, taking you through the main features as you begin your search. This is a great way to get to know Web of Science. There are also lots of tip sheets, videos and training resources to explore.
Did you know the Library offers access to over half a million ebooks across a variety of subjects? This includes titles featured on your reading lists, or that have been recommended by staff and students. Ebooks are very useful resources as they’re available 24/7 wherever you are; simply navigate to them through Library Search. If you’re off campus, you’ll need your University ID and password to log in.
One of our newest collections is Packt Publishing ebooks. This package provides access to over 700 full-text ebooks on computing subjects. The 4 collections included are:
Data
Cloud
Programming
Web Development
You can find individual titles in Library Search by entering the title or your keywords, or access the collection here. If you’re browsing the publisher’s platform, choose Show All Titles or enter your search terms.
Once you have your results, you can use the filters on the left-hand side of the page to narrow your search.
When you’ve found a title, you can read it online, add it to your saved list, search within the text or download a PDF to read later.
You can access the content in various ways: for example, you can browse by the broad subject areas, to view individual books, and/or the articles within those books.
Once in a subject area, you can then refine your search to more specific sub-disciplines.
You can also search in various ways, e.g. by author or keyword.
They can be both a great starting point for information as well as providing more in-depth details and content too.
We have bought several new e-book collections from Bloomsbury and Manchester University Press, complementing and updating our existing collections from these two publishers.
From Bloomsbury, we have bought new collections in:
All the titles are individually catalogued on Library Search, or if you prefer, you can browse them from the publishers’ platforms via the links above. NB If you are browsing any of the Bloomsbury subject collections, under Access, tick Purchased/Open Access.
We’ve subscribed to OUP Law Trove for a little while now. What is it? This Oxford University Press e-resource contains most of the essential, recommended and background reading titles you would normally find listed in your Newcastle Law School module handbooks and on the Law Library shelves.
If you’re asking if you need to buy your course texts for 2021/22 then we can’t answer that question for you, as the answer 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! It’s certainly possible but we certainly 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.
For those students with mobile devices, the OUP Law Trove website has been revised for the new academic year and is now mobile responsive. The updated design offers improved accessibility features and a better experience on phones, small screens and tablets.
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.
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.
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.
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 features 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.
Tips Search OUP Law Trove directly for your resources if you can. Library Search and your 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 Writing Development Centre.
Finally, scroll to the bottom of the contents page of a book to see if there are additional resources available:
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.
We like the variety of content on the platform from essays, presentations, videos, articles and chapters.
From a teaching point of view, academics will want to check out the teaching and learning resources, teaching guides and lesson plans.
The collection was brought together to help governments, NGOs and organisation respond to the UN call to action and we think it will be of benefit to both teaching and research at the University.
We are delighted to expand our collection of eBook titles available on a platform called Business Expert Press. We now have titles from 2010 right upto 2021.
If you’re just looking for the most recent publications then Business Expert Press have a flier available.
We’d recommend using our catalogue, Library Search to find them. Click on the advanced search and look for Business Expert Press as the publisher.
This platform also has an agreement with Harvard Business Publishing so we now have access to many titles from this publisher too via this site. See BEP website for a full list.
The platform covers the full breath of subjects for the Business School; from marketing, suppply chain management, operations management, accounting, finance, human resource management and economics to name but a few.
We’re pleased to announce that the Library has bought access to the new BAR Digital Collection, following a successful trial earlier this year.
This online collection, from one of the world’s largest academic archaeology publishers, gives full text access to over 3,100 titles published from 1974 to date. The collection includes both BAR’s British and international series, and covers archaeological research, excavation reports and other important series from around the world. Publications are mostly in English, as well as some in Italian, German, French and Spanish.
BAR browse options
You can browse or search the entire collection in various ways (e.g. by location, author, subject, time period or series). Each report is also individually catalogued on Library Search (here is an example).
Get the latest news and features about this collection on Twitter.
