Law – Page 9 – Library Subject Support

28th February 20192nd September 2021

Shades of Grey [Literature]

Grey literature. Black Literature.

Did you even know they existed? Possibly not.

Depending upon your source, “black literature” can be defined as books and peer-reviewed published journals. This is the familiar material you will source and use through your University Library and its catalogue.

Grey literature is something else entirely. Grey literature is research or material that is not produced by commercial publishers. It may be wholly unpublished or published in a non-commercial form. Think along the lines of industry-related materials, academic publications, government publications and think tank papers.

GreyNet, the Grey Literature Network Service has more detailed information on this vital research resource.

Grey Literature can be unique and an important source of information. There is a range of grey literature you may need to consult to ensure your research is complete. Examples of these materials include:

Working papers
Conference proceedings
Theses and dissertations
Government and official publications, including Green and White Papers, Select Committee papers, legislation
Policy statements
Research reports
Newsletters
Fact sheets
Blogs
Transcripts
Pre-prints and post-prints of articles
Technical reports
Professional guidelines
Patents
Standards
Market research
Data, e.g. Census, economic data, statistics

Most databases, available via your Subject Guide, will allow you to limit your search by document type, including grey literature, which does improve accessibility to this type of material.

Other resources include:

Bielefeld Academic Search Engine
Operated by Bielefeld University Library this search engine indexes open access academic literature. The Advanced Search option allows you to search for specific types of grey literature.
Box of Broadcasts
Box of Broadcasts provides access to over two million programmes from over 65 TV and radio channels, including most of the UK’s freeview network, all BBC TV and radio content from 2007, and several foreign language channels. You can view archived programmes, record new ones, create clips and playlists and see transcripts. (This resource is not available outside the UK.)
Digital Education Resource Archive (DERA)
The Institute of Education Digital Education (University of London) Resource Archive (DERA) is a digital archive of all documents published electronically by government and related bodies in the area of education.
Open Grey
The System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe provides open access to over 700,000 bibliographical references.
Teachers TV from Education in Video
Provides access to all 3,530 globally-acclaimed instructional videos produced in 2008 by the United Kingdom’s Department of Education to train and develop teachers’ skills through demonstrations and commentary by teachers, administrators, and other educational experts.
Newcastle University Theses and Dissertations Guide
Newcastle University theses are available in the eTheses Repository. Other UK theses may be available via EThOS. There is not one single source for locating non-UK theses. The Guide will give you some starting points.
UK Legislation
UK Legislation is freely available online but be aware there may be delays of up to 2 weeks before any updates appear. Use your subscribed databases available via the Law Subject Guide.

The list can go on…

Once you have located your grey literature, do question it using the CRAAP test – currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, purpose. Consider what is publicly available versus a subscribed (or paid for) resource. It may be biased and you should include that assessment in your work.

And finally, don’t forget, not everything is available online!

14th February 20192nd September 2021

Love reading? Browse through BrowZine…

Not sure which journal article you’re looking for? Do it the ‘old school’ way and browse through your favourite journals using BrowZine without having to trek to the library or newsagents to flick through the magazines.

BrowZine is a publisher-neutral reading and discovery platform for eJournals. You can browse complete issues, set up a personal bookshelf of your favourite titles and receive notifications when new issues are released.

You can do this on your PC via Library Search or perhaps you prefer using your smartphone? Access BrowZine via the University App or download the BrowZine App from the Apple Store or Play Store.

Set up your personal account using your University email address and BrowZine will always recognise you as a member of Newcastle University and give you access to the full-text articles it contains.

BrowZine Arts and Humanities Get browsing!

5th February 201931st May 2022

CNKI: New Year, new look!

Do you use CNKI and China Academic Journals? The resource has a new look for the New Year!

CNKI still offers access to journals, theses, proceedings, newspapers and yearbooks on a wide range of subjects – literature, history, philosophy, politics, military affairs, law, education & social sciences, electronic technology & information science, economics & management – but is now even easier to use.

Access CKNI from our Chinese and Japanese Studies Subject Guide. Once you have logged in, click on the New Homepage button (top left-hand corner of the screen) to go to the new interface which makes searching this vast resource easy.

N.B. If you really do prefer the old version, you can still access this for 6 months (until the end of June 2019). Just click on ‘Old Version’ in the menu at the top of the screen.

7th December 201814th September 2020

Recipe for Referencing: EndNote

What is EndNote?

The official blurb on EndNote is that it is “…the industry standard software tool for publishing and managing bibliographies, citations and references.”

Have you drifted off yet? Don’t – read on!

EndNote takes a little getting used to and we recommend you familiarise yourself with it at the start of your research process. But as Library Staff, we wouldn’t spend a significant amount of time demonstrating and training our academic staff and students on what EndNote is, and how to use it, if we didn’t think it was valuable. It will save you a huge amount of time in terms of writing up your assignments.

Essentially, you can use EndNote to create and organise a personal library of resources relevant to your research. You can import references from Library Search, and a huge range of databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore and Business Source Complete. You can ask EndNote to locate the full-text PDFs of the resources you are going to use in your research, and you can annotate them as you wish too. Did you know you can instruct Google Scholar to import references into EndNote? No? Try it. Finally, if you already have materials stored in your home folder (H:\) then you can attach them to a manually-created reference within EndNote, bringing all your research together in one place.

In addition to organising your references (and this is the clever bit) you can then get EndNote to ‘talk’ to your word processing software, e.g. Microsoft Word, and insert the citations into your work for you in your chosen referencing style, e.g. Harvard at Newcastle, Vancouver, APA or MLA. If you don’t want to do that, then EndNote will also allow you to create an independent bibliography of your references, saving you an awful lot of typing.

Using EndNote

Intrigued? You should be. Take a look at our EndNote Guide. It contains all the introductory information you need, step-by-step workbooks to train yourself on the use of EndNote (the Desktop and Online versions), videos, useful FAQs, and contacts for help, should you need it.

Finally, Newcastle University provides support for EndNote but it is not compulsory to use. You may prefer Mendeley, Zotero, RefWorks or another piece of bibliographic management software. That’s fine, whatever makes your referencing lives easier. Go on, give them a try.

31st October 20182nd September 2021

Reading Lists

Have you discovered your Reading Lists yet?

Reading Lists are what you need to access and read to get understanding of the subject on the module(s) you are taking. It’s not just the Library saying this – these lists came from your lecturers!

The Reading Lists are a list of essential, recommended and background reading for your module. Each item has a quick link through to Library Search (to find where the book may be on the shelves) or there could be a direct link through to the eBook or online journal article. It’s an efficient way of accessing your reading and can save you loads of time.

Log into Canvas to access your Reading List

If you have any questions about your Reading Lists then ask your lecturer, or if there is a technical issue then email readinglists@ncl.ac.uk for assistance.