An introduction to library resources, including database search skills, to support the UC Summer Scholarship programme in the arts and humanities fields, presented by Janette Nicoll and Cuiying Mu.

1. Library Searching For Your Summer
Scholarship
2011

2. 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!

3. What is available to you
 Books
 Journal articles
 Newspapers
 Theses
 Non-book materials e.g. video, eTV
 Primary sources –
archives, statistics, photos

4. Getting started

5. 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!

6. 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

7. Journal articles & databases
• 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

8. Searching in key journals
Browse individual
issues

9. 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

10. 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

11. “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

12. Web of Science

13. Scopus
looking for the best bits …..

14. Cited references

15. Google Scholar – free full text

16. 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?

17. Google Scholar…it’s more and less than you
thought it was…
Library databases Google Scholar
 Index selected sources  Does not index journals
systematically systematically
 Provide a variety of options  Multidisciplinary
to refine searches  Indexes more than journal
 Provide a variety of options articles – free PDF content
to sort searches  Sorts by relevance
 Limited NZ content  Easy to construct a search
 Can use sophisticated  More citation counts
syntax to construct a
comprehensive search

18. 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)

19. Newspaper databases
Press Display

20. Theses

21. Interloans
(image: world map of libraries)

22. Managing your results

23. Install EndNote software
 Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs>Add New Programs
 Start>All Programs>EndNote

24. 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

25. 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

26. Contact us

27. Feedback
One thing you’ve learned
One thing you still want to
know