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.
Westlaw is one of our highly-valued legal databases and can be accessed via our Law Subject Guide and Library Search, logging in with your Newcastle University Campus ID & password. One of the lesser-used aspects of Westlaw is its Books collection.
Westlaw Books gives access to invaluable titles such as the White Book and Archbold, alongside comprehensive and authoritative coverage of common law through titles from the Common Law Library series (e.g. Chitty on Contracts, and Benjamin’s Sale of Goods).
Until the end of November 2021, we also have access to the academically-based books available in the Sweet & Maxwell Academic Collection to support your studies. These include Duxbury’s Contract Law (Textbook Series), Winfield & Jolowicz on Tort, Treitel on the Law of Contract, and Elliott & Wood’s Cases and Materials on Criminal Law (the latter being written and edited by former academics of Newcastle Law School).
To access this content, log into Westlaw and click on Westlaw Books in the menu at the top of the page.
You can browse through the 350+ titles included in the Library’s subscription plan, but if you know the book you are looking for, search by a title keyword, e.g. criminal.
If you want to browse those student-focused books which are currently on trial, use the filters on the left-hand side of the screen. Scroll down and select ‘Sweet & Maxwell Academic’ in the Publisher/Series filter section.
This short Thomson Reuters video (1:56 mins) gives tips on using Westlaw Books effectively in locating bibliographic information (essential for referencing these titles in your work), searching the materials using keywords, saving your favourite titles for repeated use, and how to email, print, download, save into a Westlaw folder or simply view the material on the screen (in reading-mode too).
If you’re not a fan of videos and want a handy guide to download or print, then this Westlaw Books PDF will help.
If you have any comments or questions about Westlaw Books, or any other library resource, please contact libraryhelp@ncl.ac.uk or leave your comments here.
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.
If you’re a user of a database called Construction Industry Service (CIS) then you might notice that our access to the platform is slightly different.
IHS Markit have recently moved this particular sub database to a new hosting site which has a slightly different way to access it. You will now need to set up a free account and password before you can search the platform. Hopefully this is obvious from the note we’ve added to record on our catalogue, Library Search.
We’ve also made a short video which shows you how to set up an account.
The new platform/layout has options along the top and on the left to browse by subject or publishers, there are A-Z lists to navigate through or quick links straight into Eurocodes, regulations and other handbooks.
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.
October is Black History Month, with the theme Proud to be: “inviting black and brown people of all ages throughout the UK to share what they are proud to be.”
On the Library’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) guide, we’ve highlighted books and other resources from our collections which focus on black British people and themes across many fields, such as politics, law, music, art, business and literature.
Please take a look, and if you would like to suggest books which you think we should add to our collection, we’d love to hear from you: just fill in our suggestion form.
Don’t forget to explore the other sections of our EDI guide too: it aims to curate and highlight information resources of all kinds, relating to different EDI themes. You’ll find books, films, social media, digital and physical archives and more. We’d love to get your recommendations for anything we’ve missed, and you can still catch up on our summer reading challenge if you’d like to be inspired, or inspire others.
You can read about Newcastle University’s events to mark Black History Monthhere.
And watch out for a really interesting Black History Month feature from our colleagues in Special Collections and Archives, coming up later this month….
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.
If you’re looking for UK or international news from the last thirty years or so to today, then make sure you explore Nexis. The Nexis database has recently moved to a new platform (Nexis Uni): we think you’ll find it is easier to search than the old version, and it has some really useful features.
If you’re used to ‘old’ Nexis, don’t worry: the content on Nexis Uni is exactly the same, and you can still use the ‘expert’ search features if you want to.
What does it cover?
Nexis Uni enables you to search over 17,000 news, business and legal sources. This includes most UK national and regional newspapers, together with international sources, including newspapers, newswires and news magazines in multiple languages. Coverage of news titles often dates back to the 1990s and includes today’s news. Coverage is text only, and doesn’t include images, layout, adverts etc.
Nexis Uni also gives access to specialist business information, including dossiers on major UK and international companies, together with specialist legal information.
How to search news on Nexis Uni?
There are various ways to limit your search to newspapers/news sources, but the simplest is to select the News button from the Guided Search section:
Guided Search
Type in your search term (use ” ” if searching for a phrase), select your date range, and click Search.
Limit by location of publication
Once your results are displayed, you can then further limit your search by date, publication type, location, language and more.
If you want to search news from a particular country, such as the UK, select Location by Publication>International> and then choose your continent and country.
If you would like to try more complex searching (e.g. searching in a particular section of the newspaper, or combining terms together in various ways), then click on Advanced search from the home page.
There is more detailed guidance about searching in the Nexis help centre.
Searching/browsing a particular newspaper
If you want to find a particular newspaper, choose Menu>All Sources, and then type the newspaper’s name in the Search within sources box. Click the three dot menu to get more information about coverage of the newspaper in Nexis Uni (NB ignore the phrase which says Archived source: no longer updated).
You can also use this route to add one or more newspapers as search filters, if you just want to search across certain titles only: to do this, type the newspaper title in the top search box entitled All Nexis Uni.
Personalisation features
If you’re using Nexis Uniregularly, we’d recommend you create a Nexis account, which enables you to set up alerts (click the bell icon at the top of your results listing), save searches, annotate and bookmark items, and share these with others. You can read more about alerts here.
Alert button
Please note: if you had previously set up alerts or saved searches on ‘old’ Nexis, they won’t migrate to Nexis Uni, so you’ll need to set them up again.
Where can I get more help?
Click the large question mark icon at the bottom right of the screen to get to the Nexis Help Centre >Support Resources, which includes videos and short guides.
Should I use Lexis or Nexis for UK news searching?
The ‘news’ section on the Lexislegal database enables you to search UK national and regional (but not international) newspapers. Nexis Uniis produced by the same company, and should have the same UK news coverage as Lexis, though Nexis Uni also includes a wider range of news sources such as broadcast news and news wires. We also think you’ll find the Nexis search and personalisation options are better, and easier to use, so we’d recommend Nexis. However, you might prefer to stick with Lexis if you use it regularly for legal information.
The Library now has access to over 59,000 extra ebooks via JSTOR. These books are from nearly a hundred different publishers in 25 countries mainly in Europe, Africa and the USA, and were all published in 2018 or earlier. We also have access to 6,500 Open Access titles.
The content is wide-ranging, encompassing many subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, as well as some natural sciences.
Our access to all the books is for an initial twelve month period, after which we will buy permanent access to certain titles; usually those which have been most heavily used.
Finding JSTOR books
JSTOR search limit
All the books are individually catalogued on Library Search, or you can find them when you search JSTOR (you can limit your search results to find books only).
You can also view a full title list in the Evidence-Based Acquisition section here.
If you would like to find out more about JSTOR’s other collections, and how to get the best out of this resource, please see our blog post.
