Thomson Reuters have recently announced the introduction of UK Dockets in Westlaw UK, included in our academic subscription.
A docket is a record of litigation events as a case goes through the courts, starting when a claim is filed through to judgment.
You can access UK Dockets from the Cases menu. This brand-new content set containing over 230,000 litigation events will make it easier for you to receive daily updates of new cases filed in the High Court — all in one place.
With UK Dockets on Westlaw, you can easily:
create daily alerts on new cases, specific courts or parties, and other events
track individual cases and be alerted to any changes
access every step of the case journey from a claim being filed to judgment and through to the appeals process
Having access to UK Dockets on Westlaw can provide you with confidence around never missing a case event.
Access Westlaw Edge UK and UK Dockets via our Subject Guide.
If you have any feedback on the service, please contact libraryhelp@ncl.ac.uk or leave your comments below.
You might have been given an academic article to read by a module leader or found one on a reading list but what happens if you need to locate some for yourself.
On our subject guide we have a whole list of core journal platforms and databases but which ones are best if you’ve got a topic and you’re just looking for academic articles related to it.
Don’t panic, we’ve created this short video to highlight which resources to use (Avery and Art and Architecture Archive in case you’re wondering). If you want to search more widely within Social Sciences journals then you might want to consider a more generic database like Proquest.
Have you met BoB? Box of Broadcasts is a fantastic resource for all subject areas: an archive of over two million radio and television broadcasts from over 75 free-to-air channels, including all BBC channels, ITV and Channel 4, plus some international channels. New programmes are added to BoB as they are broadcast each day.
We know it’s a very popular resource, but are you getting the best out of it? Here are some quick tips for newbies and experienced users alike!
Smarter searching
BoB is a huge database, so searching by keyword may retrieve a lot of irrelevant results, especially as the default search looks for your keyword in all programme transcripts (i.e. every word spoken in a programme). Click on the Search options link just under the search bar to see various ways of making your search more precise, including searching in the programme titles only, or limiting by date. This help video gives more detail:
Playlists and clips
You can create your own playlists: really helpful if you’re researching for an assignment, or preparing to teach a module. You can also search public playlists curated by other BoB users around the UK: just select Public playlists underneath the search bar, or explore this showcase of playlists for more inspiration.
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.
Our Recommend a Book service for students allows you to tell us about the books you need for your studies. If we don’t have the books you need, simply complete the web form and we’ll see if we can buy them. For books we already have in stock, if they are out on loan please make a reservation/hold request using Library Search.
In Semester One, academic year 2021/2022 we successfully processed 62 requests from 33 students ( 13 PGR, 6 PGT and 14 UGT) in GPS, totalling just over £4900. This is what we bought :
Our Recommend a Book service for students allows you to tell us about the books you need for your studies. If we don’t have the books you need, simply complete the web form and we’ll see if we can buy them. For books we already have in stock, if they are out on loan please make a reservation/hold request using Library Search.
In Semester One, academic year 2021/2022 we successfully processed 126 requests from 44 students (14 PGR, 13 PGT and 17 UGT) in SAPL, totalling just over £7,500. This is what we bought :
Our Recommend a Book service for students allows you to tell us about the books you need for your studies. If we don’t have the books you need, simply complete the web form and we’ll see if we can buy them. For books we already have in stock, if they are out on loan please make a reservation/hold request using Library Search.
In Semester One, academic year 2021/2022 we successfully processed 45 requests from 31 different students (19 PGR, 11 PGT and 1 UGT) in the ECLS, totalling just over £5,500. This is what we bought :
Our Recommend a Book service for students allows you to tell us about the books you need for your studies. If we don’t have the books you need, simply complete the web form and we’ll see if we can buy them. For books we already have in stock, if they are out on loan please make a reservation/hold request using Library Search.
In Semester One, academic year 2021/2022 we successfully processed 17 requests from 12 students (5 PGR, 2 PGT and 5 UGT) in NUBS, totalling just over £3,700. This is what we bought :
The Library has lots of great collections and resources, so when it comes to finding wider reading for your topic or beginning research for your assignment or dissertation it might all seem a bit overwhelming. Library Search is a great place to start looking for information but there are many other resources you might want to try. To help you get the best out of our resources we’ve put together this list of some of the most useful online databases and collections for Media Studies.
Let’s dive in!
Scopus
Scopus is a large, interdisciplinary database of peer-reviewed literature, providing an index of articles, book chapters, conference papers and trade publications.
One of the main advantages of using Scopus is that it provides a lot of useful information about the articles it indexes. This includes full reference lists for articles and cited reference searching, so you can navigate forward and backward through the literature to uncover all the information relevant to your research. You can also set up citation alerts, so you can be informed of new, relevant material automatically.
https://youtu.be/qCu-obYMFsE
Scopus tutorial showing how to expand your search results.
Scopus includes other smart tools that can help you track and visualise the research in your area, including author and affiliation searching, visual analysis of search results, a journal analyser, and author identifier tools. You’ll find tutorials and advice on using these features in the Scopus support centre and on their YouTube Channel.
JSTOR
JSTOR provides access to full-text materials including scholarly journals, books and book chapters in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. It has basic and advanced search options that allow you to search by topic keyword, author, subject area, title or publisher.
Take a look at our Get more out of JSTOR blog post to find tips for advanced searching on this database.
Film and Television Literature Index
The Film and Television Literature Index is an excellent resource for film and television research, with coverage focused on film and television theory, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews. You’ll find indexes and abstracts for more than 500 journals and full-text records for over 100 journals and books.
The database uses subject terms to help you refine your search and get more helpful results, this (five minute) video explains how to use the database and how the subject term functions works.
Video guide to the Film and Television Literature Index.
Newspapers
Newspapers can be a great source of information, with news stories and editorial opinion offering a fascinating angle on your research topic. The Library provides access to a wide range of news resources, dating from the 17th century to the present day, and stretching from Newcastle to New York and beyond. You’ll find an overview of these resources and some helpful videos and links for getting started on our Newspaper Guide.
Remember to use your critical thinking skills when using newspapers as they may present biased opinion and inaccurate facts – watch out for Fake News!
Current News
If you’re looking for current news sources, Lexis is an excellent place to start. Providing access to UK national and regional newspapers, from the 1990s to the present day, Lexis presents a copy of the newspaper text, without images or formatting, alongside the details you’ll need to create a reference.
Once you have logged in to Lexis, click News in the main menu to go straight to the news content. You can refine your search using date ranges, keywords or by selecting specific newspapers or publication types (i.e. broadsheet or tabloid).
International News
The Library’s online news resources are strongest for the UK, but we do also provide access to a wide range of historic and contemporary international news resources, including The New York Times archive. You may want to explore Nexis which covers international news from the 1990s to present day.
Historic News
The Library provides access to several million digitised pages of historic newspapers, dating from the seventeenth century. We have all UK broadsheet archives online (e.g. The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph) as well as titles which are strong in arts and culture coverage, such as the Times Literary Supplement.
If you want to search across a range of historic new sources, start with Gale Primary Sources, as this gives access to almost all our British newspaper archives, except The Guardian and The Observer.
Box of Broadcasts (BoB)
Box of Broadcasts allows you to access TV and radio broadcasts from over 65 channels, including most of the UK’s Freeview network, all BBC TV and radio content from 2007, and several foreign language channels. It’s a great resource for finding documentaries or critical opinions.
You can view archived programmes, create clips and playlists, and see transcripts to help with citation and translation. You can also search other users’ public playlists to see curated lists around topics similar to your own. There are lots of helpful tutorial videos on the BoB website.
Unfortunately, Box of Broadcasts is not available outside the UK.
Statista
Statista is an extensive statistics platform covering over 1.5 million data sets. It includes reports, statistics and forecasts on a range of topics. So if you want to know which social media platforms are most popular across the globe; compare TV advertising statistics; explore industry trends, or see how many people use Netflix, Statista is a brilliant place to start.
Statistics and reports can be exported in a range of formats including images and PowerPoint, giving you flexibility over how you can include visual data in your assignments. The statistics’ source is also included, giving you the information that you need to cite it successfully.
Statista tutorial showing how to do a basic search for data.
This list was just a taster of all the great resources available for your subject area, to access these and to find out more visit your Subject Guide and explore the journals, databases and subject specific resources we’ve curated for Media Studies students.
