Library Searching For Your Summer Scholarship

2011

The Research Process

Define your topic

What information do you need?

Who would have written about it? Where?

Find information

Judge it – is it reliable? relevant?

– does it point in new directions?

– is it enough? or do you still need more?

Analyse and synthesise

Cite all sources!

What is available to you

Books Journal articles Newspapers Theses Non-book materials e.g. video, eTV Primary sources – archives, statistics,

photos

Getting started

Books

Don’t be restricted by what is

in the library

WorldCat – world’s largest

network of library content

Google Books – search the content of published books, read limited content but not complete full-text

E-Books - Your comments or questions!

Encyclopedias

Wikipedia – scan the bibliography

Scholarly encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks in all disciplines – provide an overview of the topic, often include a literature review and a bibliography

e.g. Palgrave dictionary of economics Encyclopedia of disaster relief Encyclopedia of globalization

• Use a variety of academic search tools & compare results

• Be aware of the level of content i.e. scholarly, popular

• Switch the type of keywords you use from the broad to the highly specific – e.g. natural disasters/ earthquakes or tsunamis or floods

• Use different options for refining your search– Limit and sort, apply relevance and times cited

Be prepared to scroll/scan through lists of results to find the best

Scan bibliographies

Journal articles & databases

Searching in key journals

Browse individual issues

MultiSearch

Searches across content held by UC Library

Includes books, e-books, book chapters, full-text journal and newspaper articles

Use the faceted searching options to limit by date, format and subject

Databases for Humanities/Social Science/ Commerce

Discipline based databases

Explore suggestions from Subject guides

JSTOR & Project Muse, Oxford Journals Online, Cambridge journals online, Sage, Wiley, Emerald Journals for Commerce

“Big 3” Multidisciplinary databases

Web of Science – indexes the top journals in each subject category, very strong for science, weaker in humanities and social science

SCOPUS – strong on science, good for most social sciences, excludes humanities

Google Scholar

All include cited searching

Web of Science

Scopuslooking for the best bits …..

Cited references

Google Scholar – free full text

Your first task

Use either Web of Science or SCOPUS to find:

1. What your supervisor has written

2. How many times his/her work has been cited

3. Select an article or book in your research area – find it in Google Scholar. How many times has it been cited in Google Scholar?

Google Scholar…it’s more and less than you thought it was…

Library databases Index selected sources

systematically Provide a variety of options

to refine searches Provide a variety of options

to sort searches Limited NZ content Can use sophisticated

syntax to construct a comprehensive search

Google Scholar Does not index journals

systematically Multidisciplinary Indexes more than journal

articles – free PDF content Sorts by relevance Easy to construct a search More citation counts

New Zealand databases

Te Puna and Index New Zealand (National Library of New Zealand)

findNZarticles

ANZ Reference Centre

Newspaper sources – Newztext, Papers Past

eTV – Archive of Television programmes

Kiwi Research Information Service (KRIS)

Newspaper databases

Press Display

Theses

Interloans

(image: world map of libraries)

Managing your results

Install EndNote software

Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs>Add New Programs Start>All Programs>EndNote

Activity

1. Create your personal EndNote Library

2. Search MultiSearch and export your references to your EndNote Library

3. Search Google Scholar and export your references into EndNote Library as well

Learn more about EndNote

Want to know more about EndNote?

Link fulltext articles

In-text citations, reference list and more

Please go to Library homepage >Quick links> Book a Library Course

Contact us

One thing you’ve learned

One thing you still want to know

Feedback