Library & Information Skills (Natural Sciences):2. Information Hunting

Creator: Vashti Zarach CC BY-NC 3.0. Photo: Shankland library.

This session gives guidance on places to hunt for research:

1.Library catalogue Books, Journals, InterLibrary Loans, Grey Literature, Theses, Open Access

2.Search tips3.E-databases

E-journals, Bibliographic databases, Newspapers

4.Google Scholar & Google5.Reading lists6.Contact details

Introduction

Library catalogue: http://library.bangor.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do

The catalogue enables you to search a huge selection of resources:

Printed resources within physical library sites:Books (monographs), journals, theses, pamphlets, etc.

Electronic resources from online databases bought by the library and freely available online sources:

E-books, journals, theses, reports, newspaper articles, images, etc.

Please note: not everything listed on the library catalogue is available to access: many of the listings are references only.

1. Library Catalogue

Bangor Search = search the library’s printed and online collections (book and journal titles only, not journal article titles)Articles Search = search for journal articles (some will have full text available, some are just the article references not the text) Research Output = search for research from Bangor’s research portal (which is also online at: http://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/)

Library Catalogue

Type your keywords into the library catalogue and click on Books from the heading Resource Type on the left hand side. Click Available in the Library (on the left hand side) for books. Click Full Text Online (on the left hand side) for e-books.

If searching Everything, you may find books listed which we do not have. Set to BangorSearch to find books which are in our collection.

Books and E-books

E-books can be read online (more effective than a download, which just loans you the book for 24 hours).

E-books

If you have problems accessing e-books, or cannot find the books you need, contact the library.

You can request books we do not have using InterLibrary Loans: https://www.bangor.ac.uk/library/using/docdel.php.en.

You can search Copac to see whether any other UK library has the book you need: http://copac.jisc.ac.uk/.

You can use Sconul to access other university libraries: http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sconul-access.

Books and E-books we don’t have

What is a journal article? Academics write up some of their research as journal articles, which are published in academic journals. It is quicker to produce articles than books, enabling faster dissemination.

Journal articles are peer-reviewed by other academics who specialise in the area of research covered by the article.

Journal Articles

Academic journals are published several times a year. In the past, journals were printed, and bound into volumes at the end of a year. Currently, most journals are available in electronic format online.

You may read articles in journals the university buys, or open access journals. If you are asked for a password or money (a paywall), we may not have the journal. Check the library catalogue to see if we get the journal (printed or electronic), or contact the library for help.

You can request journal articles we do not have using InterLibrary Loans: https://www.bangor.ac.uk/library/using/docdel.php.en.

Journals and E-journals

You can find journals on the library catalogue by typing in a keyword, clicking Bangor Search at the top of the screen, and narrowing by Resource type Journal (on the left hand side).

You can find journal articles by choosing Article Search at the top of the screen, and typing in keywords.

Journals and E-journals

Grey literature is material which is not produced via commercial publishers, i.e. not in journals, monographs (academic books), etc.

It includes things like reports, conference papers, working papers, theses / dissertations, patents, newsletters and much more.

In some subject areas, a lot of information is available via grey literature. Some grey literature can be found via the library catalogue, e-databases, Google, etc; some is harder to find.

Open Grey (European grey literature): http://www.opengrey.eu/. Some databases, e.g. Cab Direct, include a lot of grey literature.

Grey Literature

A thesis, or dissertation, is a long piece of research produced by a student, e.g. an undergraduate thesis, a Masters thesis or a PhD thesis.

The university library keeps printed copies of some Masters theses (if they have received a distinction or have a Welsh connection) and most PhD theses at the relevant library site, and electronic copies in the university repository where available: http://e.bangor.ac.uk/.

Theses / Dissertations

You can find Bangor theses on the library catalogue by clicking Bangor Search at the top of the screen, typing in a keyword, and narrowing by Resource type Theses (on the left hand side).

Or you can remain on the Everything tab, and search Resource Type theses to get results from a range of sources.

Theses / Dissertations

Ethos enables you to search for UK PhD theses , and freely access the ones which have already been digitised: http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do

The university buys Proquest Dissertations & Theses UK & Ireland: http://0-search.proquest.com.unicat.bangor.ac.uk/pqdtuk/advanced?accountid=14874.

There are some European theses available via DART-Europe: http://www.dart-europe.eu/basic-search.php.

Theses: Ethos

Many journal articles, monographs and other academic research are now published open access, which mean scholars from around the world can access the research, and are not barred from access due to their university subscriptions or being an independent scholar.

There are many open access directories online including the Directory of Open Access Journals: https://www.plos.org/open-access/, and many open access resources are findable via the library catalogue.

Open Access

Quotation marks are a brilliantly effective way of improving your search results, as they tie together keywords into a single phrase.

For example, if searching for research on climate change, you will get many results including the words “climate” and “change”.

By searching for “climate change” in quotation marks, you will only get results where the two words appear together, making your results list instantly more relevant.

2. Search Tips: Quotation Marks

And, Or and Not are excellent ways of broadening or narrowing your search scope and results.

You can search for two sets of keywords at once, speeding up your resource hunting, e.g. “climate change” AND “global warming”.

You can widen results by searching for alternative keywords, e.g. climate change Wales OR climate change England.

Or you can remove keywords which are giving you irrelevant results e.g. climate change Wales NOT Australia (to remove results related to New South Wales in Australia).

Search Tips: And, Or and Not

Wildcard symbols such as # can be used within a word to find alternate spellings. For example, a keyword search for analy#e wil search for both analyse and analyse.

The truncation symbol uses an asterisk * to enable you to search for a variety of word endings simultaneously. For example, a search for experiment* will find results for experiments, experiments, experimenting, experimental, etc.

Search Tips: Wildcards & Truncations

A search in the library catalogue gives you a variety of results, including books, articles, citations (short details of a resource, e.g. an author and title rather than the full text), etc, from physical / printed library collections, electronic databases and multiple online sources.

However, you may at times wish to search in an individual database (e.g. if carrying out in depth research such as a systematic review, or because the database is not indexed by the library catalogue).

3. E-databases: beyond the catalogue

Electronic databases are collections of online digital resources: e.g. journals, citations, newspapers, images and much more.

E-journal databases: In the past, academic journals were bound into volumes and kept on shelves. Now, many journals are online and stored in electronic databases belonging to different academic publishers, e.g. Sage, Cambridge, ScienceDirect, Jstor and more.

What is an e-database?

There is a list of e-databases useful for Natural Sciences online at: http://www.academia.edu/4981928/List_of_Bangor_Uni_Library_E-databases_for_Natural_Sciences

Choose a database and type the name into the library catalogue. (Or access the database from Google and find the institutional login).

Which e-databases should I use?

Sciencedirect is a large e-journal database for many subjects, not just sciences. Universities are unable to buy all journals in databases so you are only able to access articles in journals we buy.

E-databases: Sciencedirect

Screenshot used by permission of Sciencedirect (Via Twitter, 3/2/2015).

Results can be filtered (to get less results and more relevant ones) in Science Direct in many ways: •Use the filters on the left e.g. year of publication, etc•Use tricks such as quotation marks to return results where words are joined together: e.g. climate change gives over 418,000 results, “climate change” narrows to over 147,000 results.

E-databases: search tricks

Screenshot used by permission of Sciencedirect (Via Twitter, 3/2/2015).

You can also use Advanced Search pages to narrow your search, e.g. “climate change” in title only (most databases search “all fields” for your key words - i.e. all text), which gave just over 7,000 results.

E-databases: advanced search

Screenshot used by permission of Sciencedirect (Via Twitter, 3/2/2015).

Bibliographic databases contain references to articles, conference proceedings, reports, book reviews and more, rather than the actual articles, plus some full text articles.

They are good for:•in depth searching e.g. systematic reviews•giving you an overview of research on a topic•helping get a wide range of quality sources for your essays

Some bibliographic databases: Web of Science, Proquest, GreenFILE. Type database name into library catalogue to find. More listed here: https://www.academia.edu/4981928/List_of_Bangor_Uni_Library_E-databases_for_Natural_Sciences

Bibliographic databases

A example search in Web of Science. If an article won’t open, type the journal name into the library catalogue to see whether we subscribe to it. If we don’t have it, request an InterLibrary Loan.

Bibliographic databases

It is easy in Web of Science to build up more complicated searches, e.g. zoology NOT behaviour. This enables you to run a search and remove any irrelevant key topics which are dominating the results.

Bibliographic databases

You can also reorder results to see which articles have been most cited (mentioned in other articles):

Bibliographic databases

The library collections contain various newspaper resources: some national and local papers, old Welsh journals, British periodicals, etc.

Nexis is an extremely useful e-database for finding and reading news articles. Type Nexis into the library catalogue, find the database entry, click on View Online, and open source in new window.

Newspapers

Google Scholar is a online search engine which searches for academic sources, such as journal articles: http://scholar.google.co.uk/. Articles and reports posted open access online will open for anyone, as will articles labelled Full Text at Bangor (in journals the library buys).

4. Google Scholar

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission. (https://www.google.com/permissions/using-product-graphics.html)

From university networked computers, Google Scholar links to journal articles in library e-databases (the link says Full Text at Bangor).

If you are not on a networked computer, or a distance learner, open Google Scholar, click Settings at the top of the screen, click Library Links on the left, type in Bangor, tick Bangor University, and Save, to see the Full Text links. (You will need to login to access the resources).

Google Scholar: Offsite Linking

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission. (https://www.google.com/permissions/using-product-graphics.html)

In addition to academic resources, you might use Google to hunt for information. There are various ways to improve search effectiveness in Google, e.g. to find recent information on molecular biology, type in keywords, click Search Tools, click Any Time, e.g. Past month.

Google: Search Tricks

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission. (https://www.google.com/permissions/using-product-graphics.html)

The university has recently begun using online Reading Lists: http://readinglists.bangor.ac.uk/index.html.

Students on taught course will find many module reading lists here. Students on research degrees may find lists useful if relevant to the research topic, or may have to create a reading list if teaching.

5. Reading Lists

Library Contact Details:Tel: 01248 382981Email: library@bangor.ac.uk Or use live chat via library website or catalogue, Mon-Fri, 9-4

Social Media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bangorunilib/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BangorUniLib Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bangorunilib/

6. Contact Details