Resource of the week: Scopus

What is it?

Scopus is a broadly-based database covering peer-reviewed literature in the Sciences and Engineering, Health and Life Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences.  It’s a particularly good source if your research is interdisciplinary.  Scopus also offers citation searching, whereby you can track down who has referenced a particular author or paper.


Why use it?

The Scopus interface is easy to use and there is plenty of help available, including guides and videos.
You can search comprehensively across a wide range of disciplines.
You can link through to the full-text of articles via  'is it @ Liverpool'.
You can find out who is citing you and how many citations an article or an author has received.
You can use the analysis tools to look at journals, authors and measures such as h-index.  Below is an example of a chart breaking down an author’s publications by subject area.

Resource of the week: Lexis Library

What is it?
Lexis Library provides full-text access to case law, legislation and expert commentary, including access to key sources such as the All England Law Reports and Halsbury’s Laws of England. Updated daily, Lexis Library also includes full-text articles from legal, business and trade publications, annual reports and other company information and UK local and national newspapers.  Use the specific search tabs, such as Cases or Legislation, depending on what it is you are looking for, in order to make your search more precise.

Lexis Library is not searched by DISCOVER, so you need to search the database directly to access the content.

Why use it?

• To find online versions of cases and/or legislation
• To trace the judicial history of a case
• To find out about the status of a piece of legislation
• To find journal articles on specific legal topics
• To find cases which have interpreted specific pieces of legislation in court
• To access major legal reference works (also available directly from the library catalogue)
• To find articles from UK local and national newspapers

Resource of the week: IEEE Xplore

What is it?

IEEE Xplore is an exciting collection of scholarly and technical literature in electrical engineering, computer science and electronics.  It provides access to the full text of all journals and conference proceedings from the IEEE and the IET. Also included within our subscription is access to the IEEE-Wiley 2012 eBooks collection which contains a range of handbooks, textbooks, reference sources, and professional books.

Why use it?

IEEE Xplore is a fantastic tool for the discovery of relevant high level academic and technical material. Use IEEE Xplore to discover current research, assess the field and develop your own areas of expertise.

It is simple and quick to search with several advanced search options that allow you to focus your search. Because it is a full-text database you know that you will be able to read immediately everything you find.

More information and links to other relevant databases and search tools can be found on the Electrical Engineering LibGuide.

With one simple search box it is easy to start searching IEEE Xplore and quickly discover really relevant results.

Resource of the week: Knovel

What is it?

Knovel is a key source of technical information for engineers and scientists.

It provides an interactive platform for e-books and databases and gives fully searchable online access to hundreds of handbooks, data books, dictionaries, encyclopedias and technical reference books.

Why use it?

Knovel allows you to search across a very broad range of data, pull out what’s relevant and manipulate that data for your own purposes using its interactive tools.

You can use Knovel to look up a chemical formula, compare properties of substances or research alternative energy sources.

Knovel’s Data Search allows you to search by numeric data and properties from graphs, equations and tables in e-books quickly and easily. You can manipulate data values and export them into other applications, such as Excel.

Visit the Knovel LibGuide and investigate its links to videos and Webinars to show you how to make best use of Knovel.

From 10 September to 1 December 2012, Knovel is running its University Challenge, with a chance to win iPads and other prizes.  There are two new questions each week, which you can answer using Knovel.

Resource of the week: Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals

What is it?

The Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals is a comprehensive index of journal articles published worldwide on architecture and design, archaeology, city planning, interior design and historic preservation. It offers access to more than 2,500 international journals, most of which are not indexed elsewhere, and more than 675,000 citations dating to the mid-18th century. It indexes the international scholarly and popular periodical literature as well as the publications of professional associations, US state and regional periodicals, and the major serial publications on architecture and design of Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia.

Why use it?

Although the Avery Index can be searched via DISCOVER, which searches the majority of the Library’s print and e-resources, using the Index individually allows for more precise searching. For instance, you can specify just what you want your journal articles to contain. This can range from aerial images, elevations, models, photographs, plans and other ‘physical descriptions’. To retrieve the plans on-line, you will also need to limit your search to full text. It’s worth remembering though, that if you don’t limit to full text, you may also retrieve articles that we have in print but not electronically.

Results of a search for ‘Royal Liver Building AND Liverpool’ from an article showing a section through the Royal Liver Building, and a photograph taken soon after completion.

Resource of the Week: Compendex (Engineering Village)

What is it?
Compendex is a great database for Engineers, very helpful if you want to review the literature on an Engineering subject.  It indexes journal articles and conference papers published internationally since 1969.

Why use it?
Compendex is easy to search by keywords: you can be very specific and retrieve journal articles and conference papers on your subject.  It’s produced by the same people as Scopus, so it’s user friendly and links through to ‘cited by in Scopus’ information.

The advantage to searching Compendex rather than a broader-based database such as Scopus or Web of Knowledge is that the information you retrieve will be specifically related to Engineering.  You won’t have to scroll through results that are less relevant.

Compendex indexes all the major Engineering publishers, so you can be confident you’re conducting a comprehensive search.  It also provides links to full-text where we are entitled to access it.  Doing one search on Compendex saves you doing separate searches on, for example, ScienceDirect and IEEE Xplore.

An example of an author search is shown below.

More information on Compendex is available via the Engineering LibGuide, including a guide to Searching Compendex and importing results to RefWorks.

Resource of the week: British Literary Manuscripts On-line c1669-1900

What is it?
British Literary Manuscripts Online, c. 1660-1900, presents facsimile images of literary manuscripts, including letters and diaries, drafts of poems, plays, novels, and other literary works, and similar materials. Searching is based on tags and descriptive text associated with each manuscript. Images of the complete manuscript can be viewed, manipulated and navigated on screen, although the text of the manuscripts themselves is not searchable.

Why use it?

• British Literary Manuscripts On-line c1669-1900 brings together resources that were previously only available by searching separate microfilm.
• By bringing together facsimiles of draft manuscripts, letters, diaries, even account books it provides valuable insight into authors and their works.
• It provides links to related external resources that may be of interest, such as guides to reading old handwriting, or images from the National Portrait Gallery.

An example author search for Jonathan Swift

If you would like more information regarding this resource, please contact the Liaison Librarian for your subject.

Resource of the week: Datamonitor 360

What is it?

Use Datamonitor 360 to find worldwide company, industry and country reports along with product intelligence, business strategy, news and opinion.
Search for a company, industry or country.

Why use it?

• Find out about companies worldwide 
• Prepare for a job interview or an assignment
• Quickly find the strengths and weaknesses for a company
• Identify key executives
• Find market research reports from a wide range of industries

A sample search on Datamonitor 360:

Resource of the week: JISC Media Hub

What is it?

JISC MediaHub provides a single point of access to a collection of multimedia archives.
It enables cross-searching and exploration of sources such as the AP Archive, Getty Images, ITN, Design Council Archives, Imperial War Museum, Royal Geographical Society ,PYMCA,  NewsFilm Online from the ITN/Reuters archives, the complete Gaumont and Paramount newsreels, from 1910 and 1934 respectively, Film & Sound Online, Imperial War Museum, Wellcome Library and the Biochemical Society. The archive also includes over 50 hours of classical music recording from the Culverhouse collection.
JISC MediaHub also enables users to search and link out to external media collections such as the Open Video Project, Wellcome Images, ADS, ARKive and the First World War Poetry Archive.
It is fully searchable by collection, time, subject, place or learning materials.


Why use it?

There are any number of ways to use this resource, from simply searching for still or moving images to incorporate into assignments(most images can be used for educational purposes), to using individual collections for in-depth research.
Below is just a snapshot of some of the things you can do using JISCMediaHub.

• Search unrivalled collection of news footage, including some previously unbroadcast and unseen material, such as rushes and programme scripts. Silent cinema newsreels are also included.
• Explore a substantial selection of films charting the development of biochemistry in the later 20th century through the experiences of some of the subject's most celebrated practitioners.
• Explore a unique global initiative, gathering together into one centralised digital library, films, photographs and audio recordings of the world's species.
• Search for and share high quality archaeological images to enhance the learning experience of scholars, educators, lecturers and researchers within archaeology and its related disciplines.
• Search 5,900 images of contemporary youth culture. These images provide powerful documentation of changing fashions and lifestyles of young people, depicted at their finest (and worst).
• Explore documentaries and feature films from the Amber film-making collective established in the north-east of England in 1968. Of interest to students, teachers and researchers in the fields of media studies and of UK political and social history in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

If you would like more information regarding this resource, please contact the Liaison Librarian for your subject.

TRIAL: Book Citation Index

We have a trial of Book Citation Index (both the Science and Social Science & Humanities editions) until 7th August 2012.

To try the Book Citation Index just access Web of Knowledge and it will be one of the available databases. To search it on its own, click on the Web of Science tab and then choose which databases you want to include in your search at the bottom of the search form.

The Book Citation Index covers over 30,000 "editorially selected" books published from 2005 onwards, and it plans to add over 10,000 books each year. Books are indexed at the chapter- and book-level.

Book Citation Index includes citation counts from journals, conference proceedings and other books, and SFX / find it @ liverpool links to see if the library has the book in print or online.

After trying Book Citation Index please leave your comments below. We are interested to hear if you find content in Book Citation Index that you haven't been able to find in Discover, Google Books or Amazon, for example.. You can choose the anonymous option to comment without needing to have a Blogger account, but it helps if you include your name in your feedback so that we can follow up on comments.

Resource of the week. Henry Stewart Talks

What is Henry Stewart Talks?

Henry Stewart Talks is a database of high quality audiovisual lectures presented by leading experts from academia and industry.

At Liverpool we have access to over 1,500 talks in the fields of biomedicine and life sciences and journalism ready to be streamed to your desktop.

Whether you want to or keep up-to-date with the latest developments in your area of expertise or explore new territory from the comfort of your home or office, Henry Stewart Talks could be just what you’re looking for.

Each presentation averages around 40-50 minutes, preserves the speaker’s individual personality and approach and can be experienced at your own pace, wherever you want and as often as you want, with a printable slide handout available in PDF format.

The collection is organized into comprehensive series, regularly updated, with new presentations constantly becoming available.

You can browse by series or search by topic, presenter or institution.

All of the talks have been added to the library catalogue and Discover.

Here is an example:

Resource of the week: Public Information Online

What is it?
Public Information Online brings together all UK Parliamentary, Scottish Parliamentary, Northern Ireland Assembly, National Assembly for Wales, Scottish Government publications and non-Parliamentary publications in pdf format. This includes documents such as House of Commons Papers, Bills and Explanatory Notes, House of Lords Papers, Bills and Explanatory Notes, Command Papers, Public Bills and Standing Committee Debates. Coverage varies, but tends to be from 2006/2007/2008 onwards. Hansard and the Civil Service Yearbook are also available from this site.

Non-Parliamentary publications are available from 2009 onwards and include documents from organisations such as the Audit Commission, Department for Work & Pensions, Health & Safety Executive, National Statistics and the Law Commission.

Search by Parliamentary Session, Paper number, Title or phrase/keyword/subject term with options to further sort and refine your results.


Why use it?

1. Keep up to date with Parliamentary issues.
2. Trace the history of a particular debate or issue.
3. Use the Bill Tracker to follow a particular bill through the legislative process, or sign up to an RSS feed/email alert to be kept informed of progress.
4. Use the House of Commons thesaurus to find subject terms related to your topic to help with further research.
5. Find evidence to see how issues have been dealt with across the different Parliaments/National Assemblies.

Screen showing the Pensions Bill and associated documents:

Resource of the Week: ProQuest Dissertations and Theses

What is it?

Essentially two databases, ProQuest Dissertations &Theses (PQDT)

& ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: UK & Ireland.

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: UK & Ireland is the most comprehensive available record of doctoral theses from the United Kingdom and Ireland. The collection offers the most comprehensive available listing of theses, with abstracts accepted for higher degrees by universities in the United Kingdom and Ireland, since 1716

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) is the world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, spanning from 1861 to the present day and offering full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997.

Why use it?

• Find what research has been done in your area (historical)
• See what the current research topics are in your area – find gaps to exploit or case studies to explore further
• Get ideas for your dissertation
• Get ideas on layout
• Get ideas on how to construct an abstract
• Get the full text of a dissertation relevant to your research

Even just looking at the contents pages can spark ideas and provide direction for your research.

An example search on ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) using the search terms Shakespeare AND women.

Farewell OCLC databases

We have decided not to renew our subscription to a bundle of databases on the OCLC FirstSearch platform (these were the former RLG Eureka databases):

Anthropology Plus
Chicano Database
FRANCIS
History of Science, Technology and Medicine
Index to 19th Century American Art Periodicals
Russian Academy of Sciences Bibliographies
SCIPIO: Art and Rare Book Sales Catalogs

Usage of these databases had always been low, but since we launched DISCOVER usage of these databases has dwindled almost to zero.

These databases have been removed from the catalogue and LibGuides.

New ProQuest platform replaces CSA Illumina

The CSA Illumina site and the old ProQuest platform have now been combined into a new ProQuest platform which allows searching of any combination of CSA databases and ProQuest databases.

The previous sites will exist until June, but we have already updated our links to the main ProQuest and CSA databases and would encourage you to try it out.

As part of the transition, many of the more niche CSA databases have lost their identity and have been subsumed into larger databases.

So if you were a regular user of databases like:

Aerospace and High Technology Database
Earthquake Engineering Abstracts
Entomology Abstracts
METADEX
Water Resources Abstracts

(and we know from our usage statistics that most people are already searching larger clusters of CSA databases) then please take a look at the new ProQuest platform and familarise yourself with the new arrangement of databases. For example, the databases above are now part of:

Advanced Technologies Database with Aerospace
Engineering Research Database
Biological Sciences
Materials Research Database
Environmental Science and Pollution Management

respectively. We plan to stop linking to the old CSA Illumina site from the library catalogue and LibGuides by the end of February.

The new platform is also home to:

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
ProQuest Historical Newspapers (apart from the NY Times which should appear soon)
ProQuest Nursing and Allied Health Source
British Periodicals

Results from the old sites will still appear in the More Results area of DISCOVER until EBSCO create new 'connectors' to search the new ProQuest platform.

DISCOVER tip: what does it search?

When you search DISCOVER your main results can include hits from 41 different databases, plus 'more results' from another 17 external databases (in the column on the right). In time, those 17 additional databases will expand to 40 databases (see below).

The main search includes 4 multidisciplinary databases:

University of Liverpool Catalogue
TOC Plus (a huge 'base index' of data supplied directly by publishers)
Academic Search Complete (EBSCO's largest multidisciplinary full-text database)
British Library Document Supply Centre Inside Serials & Conference Proceedings (i.e. Zetoc)

and 37 databases with some element of subject specialisation:

Agricola
Alexander Street Press
America: History & Life
Art & Architecture Complete
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
British Nursing Index
Business Source Premier
CINAHL
Communication & Mass Media Complete
Computers & Applied Sciences Complete
EconLit
Environment Complete
ERIC
GeoRef
GeoRef In Process
Global Health
Global Health Archive
GreenFILE
Historical Abstracts
Humanities International Complete
Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts
MEDLINE
MEDLINE with Full Text
MLA Directory of Periodicals
MLA International Bibliography
Music Index
Philosopher's Index
PsycARTICLES
PsycINFO
Race Relations Abstracts
Regional Business News
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
RISM Series A/II: Music Manuscripts after 1600
Shock & Vibration Digest
SPORTDiscus with Full Text
Teacher Reference Center
Urban Studies Abstracts

Our DISCOVER 'subject profiles' (Health & Life Science, Humanities, Science & Engineering, and Social Sciences) search the 4 multidisciplinary databases, plus a subset of the 37 subject specialist databases. Searching one of our 'subject profiles' won't find you anything that you won't find in our main DISCOVER search, but it can help to reduce 'noise' from irrelevant hits and make useful hits more prominent.

Similarly our main search's 'more results' area uses 3 multidisciplinary databases:

Scopus
ISI Web of Knowledge
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

and 14 subject specialist databases:

ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts
BHI: British Humanities Index
Biological Sciences
BIOSIS Previews
CSA High Technology Research Database with Aerospace
DAAI: Design and Applied Arts Index
Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
Oceanic Abstracts
ProQuest: Historical Newspapers, The New York Times
Social Services Abstracts
Sociological Abstracts
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

Again, our DISCOVER 'subject profiles' search the 3 multidisciplinary databases, plus a subset of the 14 subject specialist databases.

Over time we intend adding the following databases to our 'more results' databases:

ACM Digital Library
Aqualine
ARTbibliographies Modern
ASFA Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts
Biotechnology & Bioengineering Abstracts
British Standards Online
Cochrane Library
Compendex
Conference Papers Index
Credo Reference
Early English Books Online - EEBO
ECCO - Eighteenth Century Online
Economist Historical Archive 1843-2006
IEEE Xplore
JSTOR
Literature Online Criticism - LION
Literature Online Fulltext - LION
MathSciNet
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations Union Catalog
Oxford Reference Online Core Collection
SPIE Digital Library
Technology Research Database
Times Digital Archive, 1785-1985
TLS Historical Archive 1902-2005

We'll keep you added as new sources are added to our main databases and our external databases. Look out for Web of Knowledge and NBER Working Papers in our main search soon.

Our LibGuides list the full range of databases that we have for each subject, regardless of whether or not they are included in DISCOVER searches.