Institute of Physics Ebook collections offer high-quality research across physics and related disciplines. They have been created to meet the needs of students, early-career researchers and established leaders in the fields.
An additional 255 IOP ebooks covering subjects such as astronomy, particle and nuclear physics, medical physics and biophysics, quantum science and more have just been added to the Library’s collection.
If you find a title that we don’t have full-text access to and you would like us to add it to the collection, just use our Books on Time form available on the Library website to request it.
Knovel provides a searchable database of handbooks, data sets and reference sources in engineering (chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical, materials and biotechnology), chemistry and biochemistry, earth and environmental sciences among other areas. You can search within a particular work, or across the entire Knovel collection. Searching can be done by keyword or by numeric data ranges.
Knovel has a data search feature that allows you to find materials that meet specific parameters including physical, mechanical and thermal properties. Tools within Knovel include interactive charts, graphs, spreadsheets, and equation plotters.
You have access to:
Technical reference resources from 150+ publishers including AIChE/CCPS, NACE and more.
65M+ data points including material and chemical property data
If you are wondering how to find Knovel, you can either search for it in Library Search or you can find it in all of the Engineering, Sciences and Computing Subject Guides under both the ‘Books and eBook’ AND the ‘Journals and Database’ (eJournal Collections) tabs.
Are you preparing a dissertation or project, or will be doing so next academic year?
Make sure you visit our interactive dissertation and project guide. Based on the extensive experience of staff from the Library and Writing Development Centre, this guide includes an interactive search planner, which takes you through the different stages of developing your search strategy, and enables you to create and download your personalised search plan: you can even ask for feedback on it from the Library liaison team.
The search planner is complemented by a project proposal planner, developed by our colleagues in the Writing Development Centre, to help you develop or refine your research proposal.
The guide also points you to further advice on a wide range of relevant skills, to give you advanced knowhow in finding, managing and evaluating information. For example: where to find specialised information resources for your subject area; how to access resources beyond our Library; and methods to keep your literature search up to date over a long period.
It’s easy to navigate, with clear text and short videos throughout. We hope you find it helpful, and if you’d like to spare one minute to suggest any changes, we’d really appreciate it!
This toolkit takes you through all the stages of developing your search strategy. Step by step, the planner helps you take a closer look at your question, to identify important concepts, themes and keywords. You can keep adding, editing and refining this as you go, and even create and download your own personalised search plan and email it to yourself, your tutor or librarian for feedback
The guide contains further advice on a wide range of relevant skills, such as finding, managing and evaluating information. It also directs you to the key information resources for your subject area. So make sure you check it out.
Freely and easily accessible via Library Search, the ASME Digital Collection provides unparalleled depth, breadth, and quality of peer-reviewed content. This includes access to ASME’s Journals from 1959 – present; ASME’s Conference Proceedings from 2000 – present (with select proceedings back to 1955); and ASME’s ebooks from 1993 – present (with select titles back to 1944).
With powerful search and advanced filtering tools you can use keywords, topics, citations and date ranges to retrieve content simultaneously from different digital resources. This gives you the chance to apply Boolean operators to clearly refine your searches and therefore access more results that are directly relevant to your research.
ASME Digital Collection integrates well with other digital platforms and it can link to Crossref, Google Scholar, and Web of Science to discover citing articles. There are also tools for exporting citations to your preferred reference management software and you can share your links via email and social media. Just like a lot of digital databases it’s easy to set up email alerts to notify you about saved searches and newly published content.
So all that’s left to do is to search for ASME Digital Collection on Library Search, login as a Newcastle University user with Shibboleth, and browse the resources. You’re bound to find something useful!
We are rather proud of our new Sustainability Guide, created in collaboration with one of our quite brilliant SAgE PhD students, Georgios Pexas – actually he did all the hard work by providing all of the content!
This guide looks at Sustainability regarding the key resources available from the Library around the three main pillars of sustainability: Environment, Economy and Society. We particularly like Georgios’ opening paragraph for our guide explaining what sustainability is and its relation to these three pillars:
“As defined by the “Brundtland Commission” in 1987, sustainability is the ability to “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In other words, it describes living within the limits of available natural, physical and social resources and in ways that allow our environment to thrive in perpetuity; a concept that can be summarised as: “enough, for all, forever”. Sustainability approaches the issue of resource depletion holistically, unifying Environmental, Economical and Social concerns.”
You will find the Sustainability Guide in the SAgE section of the Subject Guides, as it focuses on natural sciences and engineering side of sustainability, however we would love to have a section on how we as individuals can be more sustainable. We are trying to keep this Guide concise, yet useful, yet we welcome any new ideas for this guide, so please contact lorna.smith@ncl.ac.uk if you think of anything worth adding.
ACM Digital Library is a full-text, online collection of all publications by the Association of Computing Machinary, including journals, conference proceedings, technical magazines, newsletters and books. Publications run from 1936 to present day, with 2,807,672 publications and 576,689 of these available for download.
Top topics include:
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Natural language processing.
Networks and Communications.
Society and the Computing Profession
Human Computer Interaction.
Data science.
Applied computing.
Security and Privacy.
Hardware, Power and Energy.
…plus much more.
Though the topics are primarily computing, it would definetly be a collection worth having a look at if you are in Electrical Engineering or studying/researching an interdiciplinary topic which contained elements of computer science.
ACM have just recently updated it’s interface and search function (thanks goodness!), making it much easier to search and discover a range of invaluable resources.
You can now browse by topic or type (book, journal etc.), search by simple keyword or use its advanced search:
Loving their ‘Search tips’ on the right hand side in Advanced Search – wish all databases had this. Would help us all so much!
So, go and explore ACM – a definite ‘must’ for all Computing students. You can either find the ACM eJournal collection in your Computing Subject Guide (under Journals and Databases/eJournal Collections) or you can search for ‘ACM Digital Library’ in Library Search. Remember, if you find anything that doesn’t have full text, first check Google Scholar, then if still no luck you can request an interlibrary loan. If you need further help with any Computing or Engineering resources, please feel free to make an appointment with your Librarian.
It is possible to check live study space availability online or by using the university app. This will allow you to head straight for the nearest available study space and therefore avoid wasting valuable time searching for a desk.
You can also book a group study room or booth online for a maximum of 120 minutes per day. This will allow you to get together with fellow students to plan and allocate some guaranteed study time prior to your next exam.
Study Well@NCL, which runs throughout the exam period, advocates a responsible approach to studying and encourages positive behaviours in study spaces. Remember, it is key to choose the right environment that meets your study needs, to stay hydrated, and to respect the students and study space around you.
Thinking about study space in advance can help to remove a lot of unwanted stress and thus free up valuable energy that will aid both your revision focus and exam preparation.
Not one for New Year’s Resolutions? Well, how about a challenge?
Why not try a 20-minute-a-day-reading-for-pleasure challenge?
Pick something from the Law in Literature and Medicine in Literature collections, something from the Philip Robinson Library, or your own book shelves, and start today!
We all know that reading for pleasure is a good thing – pleasure is good! But it’s good for de-stressing, positive wellbeing, conversation, imagination, empathy, a break, engagement… READaxation! Don’t just take my word for it, click HERE for research by The Reading Agency.
Of course, if you read more than 20 minutes then… YES!
Share what you’re reading with your friends and family, colleagues and fellow students, comment on here, or even the social media world – #ReadingChallenge.
The University may be closed for the Christmas period but if you are studying, writing assignments or revising, library resources and help are always available. We may not be in the building, but the library team can help you with your semester 2 preparation.
Use your Library Subject Guide
If you are not sure which resources are best to use for your subject or what you can access off-campus, visit your Subject Guide . The guides bring together links and help for the specialist information sources in your discipline.
Visit the Library over the vacation
Between Christmas and New Year, the Philip Robinson Library will operate as self-service from 10.00 pm on Friday 20th December 2019 until Thursday 2nd January 2020. If you need access to books and journals, or a quiet place to study, all you will need is your University smartcard. Visit the website for the Library vacation opening hours.
If you need help or have a question, use Library Help to get in touch with us. You can live chat with a librarian outside of the University to get immediate answers, or send us a message and we will get back to you when the University reopens.
So remember, you can access all of our online resources, journals and ebooks from the Library website and we will be back in the Library on 2nd January 2020. Enjoy the festive season!
