Resource trial – Policy Commons

We are trialling Policy Commons in October 2023. The database is a one stop shop to locate publications from leading policy experts, NGO’s and think tanks. Useful for students, staff and researchers across all disciplines it includes publications from across the globe including:
-The Council of Europe
-Environmental Law Institute
-European Parliamentary Research Service
-Center for Security Studies
-OECD
-World Bank Group
-United Nations
-International Institute for Environment and Development
To find out more see video below.

To access Policy Commons follow this link via Library Search

To send us your comments or feedback please add to this post or email us.

Trial : Datasets Module in Sage Research Methods

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash

At the moment we have a subscription to Sage Research Methods which is a fantastic resource for anyone doing a research project or dissertation. This database contains dictionary and encyclopaedia entries, book chapters, full books, journal articles, case studies, and streaming videos dedicated to the subject area of Research Methods.

It supports all stages of the research process from writing a research question, conducting a literature review, choosing the best research methods, analysing data, to writing up your results and thinking about publication. It contains information suited to all levels of researchers, from undergraduates starting their first projects to research associates. 

The section we have on trial is Datasets. These provide researchers a new way of understanding quantitative or qualitative data analysis. Within each title you are provided with sample data that has been optimised for demonstrating a method, together with a how-to guide that explains the method and the subsequent analysis using the data provided.

Quantitative examples also include software guides for statistical analysis using SPSS, R, Stata, or Python. Several examples cover how to manage imperfect data, including missing data, rescaling variables, and other common data cleaning scenarios.

  • Datasets Part 1 consists of 230+ datasets from across the social sciences.
  • Datasets Part 2 is an additional 300 datasets that cover further methods, including data management issues such as handling data with missing variables.
  • Datasets can be downloaded in a range of file formats and cited.

The trial period will run from the 27th of February to the 28th of April 2023.
To search or browse the collection of Datasets follow this link. Off campus users will be asked to log in with your Newcastle University ID and password.

Further information on the platforms from SAGE can be found on their own libguide.

We’d appreciate any feedback about these products to help make decisions about future subscriptions after the trial period has ended, please drop your Liaison Librarian an email.

Resource Trial – Faculti Platform

Faculti is a media library of up to date academic and professional research insights. It is cross disciplinary and includes insights from The United Nations, UK Parliament, Bank of England and many other academic and research institutions worldwide.
It includes useful Leading Figures, Most Cited and Explainers categories as well as the ability to browse specific subject areas or do a keyword search.
Our free trial lasts until 10th November 2022.

Faculti platform

The platform is compatible with any desktop computer or mobile device.

If you’re on campus then access the platform here

If you’re off campus you’ll need to authenticate in a different way so click on access via this link

The trial ends on 11th November 2022. To help us evaluate it, please email us your feedback, or leave a reply on this blog.

Passport Pro Database

The Passport Euromonitor database is a key resource for international market research data. We recently upgraded our subscription to Passport Pro which gives researchers to additional market surveys covering a wide range of topics:

  • Passport Cannabis
  • Passport Luxury Goods
  • Passport Mobility (formerly Automotive)
  • Passport Nutrition
  • Passport Product Claims & Positioning (formerly Ethical Labels)
  • Passport Sports
  • Passport Ingredients
  • Passport Industrial

The database gives researchers access to consumer lifestyle reports, future demographics, country profiles, updates on consumer and industry trends, company information, market sizes and economic indicators.
Passport covers more than 200 countries and regions, with a global outlook.

Access Passport via Library Search.

Passport Market Research Database

Passport has just had a refresh to include more content on travel industry research including “In-Destination Spending” and “Booking” to help identify current and future trends. It has also a new ‘Price Tracker’ feature to compare shifts in price over time within specific sectors. For a quick demo see this video from Passport Euromonitor.

ProQuest Resources on Trial for Social Sciences

Education Magazine Archive

An archive of magazines in the field of education, ranging from the early 20th to 21st centuries. The publications are aimed at teachers and other educational professionals and constitute valuable primary sources through which the evolution of educational policy, practice, and theory during this period may be delineated and interpreted. This content also pertains strongly to several related fields such as social history, psychology, and childhood studies.

LGBT Magazine Archive

Archival runs of 26 of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests. Includes the pre-eminent US and UK titles – The Advocate and Gay Times, respectively. Chronicles more than six decades of the history and culture of the LGBT community. In addition to LGBT/gender/sexuality studies, this material also serves related disciplines such as sociology, political science, psychology, health, and the arts. Some publications may contain explicit content.

LGBT Thought and Culture

LGBT Thought and Culture is an online resource hosting the key works and archival documentation of LGBT political and social movements throughout the 20th century and into the present day. The collection contains 150,000 pages of rare archival content, including seminal texts, letters, periodicals, speeches, interviews, and ephemera

Women and Social Movements Library

Women and Social Movements Library focuses on women’s public activism globally, from 1600 to the present. Created through a collaboration with leading historians, the collection contains nearly 400,000 pages of primary source documents and more than 200 related scholarly essays interpreting these sources.

ProQuest One Business

Designed to help business researchers balance theoretical and practical learning, and acquire the research skills that will make them successful in their courses and careers, ProQuest One Business is a complete business library containing millions of full-text items across scholarly and popular periodicals, newspapers, market research reports, dissertations, books, videos and more.

To access these resources go to the following URL: https://trials.proquest.com/access?token=ZLeHkHPCFdDQQTOVtCIIEtVnU and accept the terms and conditions.
You may be asked to log in with your Newcastle University ID to access the ProQuest platform.

The trials are available until 17th December 2021.
As always, your feedback will be very welcome: you can either email it, or leave a comment on this blogpost.

FAME: Why’s it so useful?

FAME is a library database that covers UK and Irish companies providing data for company accounts, ratios, activities, ownership and management.
We’ve put together a short video to give you 3 reasons why you might want to use the FAME database in your research.
There are many more reasons but these will get you started!

So many reasons to use FAME

  • To find company profiles, financials, credit scores…
  • To do a peer analysis of companies within the same sector
  • To create your own ‘company set’ based on your own chosen criteria, such as industry, number of employees, region….the list goes on!
  • To download your own data set for analysis to use in assignments
  • For your own career research, e.g. to find out more before an interview
  • Many professionals use FAME and other databases like it so you will be enhancing your own skills for employment – add it to your CV!

Where is it?

Image of the library company information guide
Company information guide

To access FAME follow the links from our Company information guide

Reading Lists and supporting your students

Teaching is just around the corner and the students are starting to prepare for studying through 2021/22. So, which resources are you going to recommend to your students to support your teaching? How will you ensure the Library can offer access to what you need?

We’re promoting the Reading Lists service to our students. It’s easy to use, accessible and is a good starting point when approaching a new subject area.

Surprisingly, even in 2021, not every book is available online. You can use Reading Lists to check to see if we, as an institution, can gain access to those essential, recommended and background reading materials for you and your students. 

How can you do this? Well, you can self-enrol on the Reading Lists Training for Staff course which is available via Canvas. It will explain each stage of creating and editing your lists ready for your students to use for guidance and to prioritise their reading.

An image of the Reading Lists Training for Staff Canvas course home page.

If you don’t have time to do this now, you can produce a list of books, book chapters, journal articles and other resources and submit this to our dedicated Library Reading Lists team to create the online version to be accessed via Canvas for you. If you are doing this, the team need to know:

  • Module Leader or Coordinator’s name.
  • School.
  • Reading list/Module title.
  • Module code.
  • Anticipated student numbers on module (if known).
  • When it is running, e.g. Semester One and/or Two.

You should think about how the list should be organised: by topic, lecture, seminar, etc.

Finally, each item should be classified as essential, recommended or background reading so the Library is aware of the potential demand on the materials.

If you have any questions about availability of online materials or the Reading Lists service, contact your Liaison Team.

IBISWorld Trial for March

We are currently running a trial to IBISWorld which is a platform offering industry market research and industry risk ratings. This includes statistics, analysis and forecasts. For more information please click to download a summary below.

To start using IBISWorld, enter your keywords in the search box and then from the results list use the left hand options to narrow your search. e.g narrowing down by geography/country.

Once you selected a report to view; again use the left hand option to navigate to specific sections e.g. chapters on the industry, key statistics, major companies etc.

You can also navigate by choosing the Country and then the sector.

Look for the download icons so you can export reports and tables in different formats e.g. Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel.

We hope you’ll find the layout and navigate straightforward, if not click on the ? icon in the top right within IBISWorld for additional help.

This trial includes access to:
Australia
• Industry Reports (ANZSIC)
• Specialized Industry Reports
China
• Industry Reports
Global
• Global Industry Reports
United Kingdom
• Industry Reports (UK SIC)
• Specialized Industry Reports
United States
• Industry Reports (NAICS)
• Specialized Industry Reports
Canada
• Industry Reports (NAICS)
Germany
• Industry Reports (DE-WZ)
Ireland
• Industry Reports (NACE)
New Zealand
• Industry Reports (ANZSIC)

You can now download reports, charts, graphs, data tables and more in a variety of formats including Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel.

You’ll find some useful information for completing SWOT, PESTLE and Porters Five Forces together with industry information.

As always, your feedback will be very welcome: you can either email it, or leave a comment on this blogpost.

Access IBISWorld via the trial via this link.

The trial is running from the 1st to 31st March 2021.

Marketline free trial in March

We are currently running a trial of the Marketline database.

Marketline is a world leading provider of commercial intelligence.
The interactive subscribers-only platform, provides anytime access to a unique & exclusive mix of global company, industry, country, city and financial data.

During the trial you will be able to access:

  • 360 degree perspective of companies, industries, countries, and cities
  • Real-time news, analyst opinion, and financial deals
  • Powerful analytics

You’ll find some useful information for completing SWOT, PESTLE and Porters Five Forces together with industry information.

Marketline platform

As always, your feedback will be very welcome: you can either email it, or leave a comment on this blogpost.

Access Marketline via the trial via this link.

The trial is running from the 1st to 31st March 2021.

It’s as easy as…Reading Lists

As an academic, there are 5 easy steps to creating your own reading list on Leganto, our Reading Lists service, for your students: 

  1. Access or create your reading list via your VLE (e.g. Canvas).
  2. Add resources from Library Search and other sources (e.g. Blackwell’s Book Shop).
  3. Tag each item using the appropriate tag (i.e. essential, recommended or background reading), where:
    Essential = very important to the course, all students will need to use this text.
    Recommended = supplementary texts which students are encouraged to use.
    Background = additional texts which are suggested for background subject area reading.
  4. Send your list to the library for checking and stock orders.
  5. Publish your list to ensure your students can access it.

Things to know:

Tagging each item with essential, recommended and background can generate book orders: there are book/student ratio ordering criteria for items being added to library stock and tagging will allow informed decisions to be made by the Library’s team.

Given we are in the midst of a pandemic and teaching is being undertaken in a different way this term, the Library will attempt to obtain access to all resources online (e.g. e-books) where possible. Please note we do try our best but not everything is available online! Where we can’t obtain an online resource, we will usually opt for the print instead.

There is a Canvas course prepared for you to learn how to use Reading Lists. It’s short and full of useful information on making the best use of the service for your students. Self-enrol on Reading Lists Training for Staff today.

An image of the Canvas-based Reading Lists Training for Staff home screen.

If you would prefer to submit your reading list or lecture/seminar handout to a dedicated team of Library staff to be processed, use the submission form or email the lists to readinglists@ncl.ac.uk for support.

So, Reading Lists are a great way to let your students know what they need to read, and to keep the Library informed too; they are the wise choice.