Looking for information on a topic

1. Looking for information on a topic Choose your own adventure! NEXT

2. You’ve got less than a week to research and write an assignment on urban poverty in Asia. We are going to explore our (www.elibrary.bham.ac.uk) to access and search resources eLibrary NEXT

3. Once in eLibrary you have a few options - do you? • In the ‘Find eJournal’ section, search for e-journal titles 2) In the ‘Subject Search’ section, select the ‘Public Policy’ category, then the ‘Urban & Regional Studies’ sub-category, ready to select some resources for cross-searching 3) In the ‘Find Resource’ section, select the ‘Public Policy’ category, then the ‘Urban & Regional Studies’ sub-category, click on ‘Go’ and access certain resources directly 1 2 3

4. To locate some useful journal articles from the ‘Find eJournal’ section, do you? • Search for e-journal titles containing the words ‘urban’ or ‘poverty’ • Search for the International journal of urban and regional research then access it via IngentaConnect to browse its contents pages 1 2

5. Using the ‘Find eJournal’ section in this way is definitely not the best way to find out about the content of journals. There may be many journal articles relevant to your topic, but what are the chances of them all appearing within journal titles containing the words ‘urban’ or ‘poverty’? You will miss out on a lot of useful resources by searching in this way.Click here to start again

6. Although this journal will almost certainly have some useful information somewhere, browsing for it is not the best way, because:- it is time consuming- there is no guarantee that this journal will contain the best article on this topic NEXT

7. Although you can extend your search across all Ingenta journals this is limited as Ingenta may not include the most relevant journals - so you won’t find the most relevant articles. It would be better to search a relevant database in this subject area Click here to start again

8. You are ready to select some resources for cross-searching. Do you? • Click on the ‘i’ (information) icons alongside each resource in the list to identify the most relevant resources for this topic and then select those 2) Select all of the resources in the list that have tick-boxes alongside them- that way you’ll pick up everything 1 2

9. Reading the information from the ‘i’ icons is a good way of selecting the most relevant resources for your particular topic and eliminating those that are not suitable. Now in terms of your search terms, do you? • Using the ‘Advanced search’ option, search using the words: urban poverty OR Asia • Using the ‘Advanced search’ option, search using the words: (urban poverty OR urban poor) AND asia 1 2

10. Searching for urban poverty OR Asia will retrieve references to articles on urban poverty or on Asia. You need to construct a search that finds articles where both urban poverty and Asia are discussed. You may need to learn more about how to construct an effective search- have a look at the following guide: www.is.bham.ac.uk/ppm/publications/skills/sk10effectivesearching.pdf NEXT

11. To improve your search techniques it is worth considering the pros and cons of cross-searching a number of databases: Quick- Covers a range of resources - All resources listed on eLibrary are of high academic quality Advantages NEXT

12. - Relatively limited search options compared to that of individual databases (eg field searching and thesaurus etc)- Not all databases in eLibrary are cross-searchable (so you may be missing key articles / resources)To access these you will need to go to the resource itself. Disadvantages NEXT

13. Having carried out a cross-search do you now wish to? • Return to the cross-searching option and try again in the light of your newly-acquired knowledge and skills 2) Return to the very beginning to start again 1 2

14. Searching using the words: (urban poverty OR urban poor) AND asiashows that you are combining your keywords correctly. This search will retrieve references relevant to both urban poverty (or urban poor) and Asia (or Asian/ Asians) NEXT

15. To improve your search techniques it is worth considering the pros and cons of cross-searching a number of databases: - Quick- Covers a range of resources in one go.- All resources listed on eLibrary are of high academic quality (compared to what you would get from a search on Google) Advantages NEXT

16. - Relatively limited search options compared to that of individual databases (eg field searching and thesaurus etc)- Not all databases in eLibrary are cross-searchable (so you may be missing key articles / resources) To access these you will need to go to the resource itself. Disadvantages NEXT

17. With your list of results do you? • Assume that you can access the electronic full-text of each of the resulting references 2) Use the ‘Find It! Bham’ icon to check to see if the University subscribes to the electronic full-text 1 2

18. It is important to realise that your list of results are at this stage simply references to journal articles (and other types of publication), not the full-text, which the University may or may not subscribe to electronically.Click here to start again

19. Clicking on the ‘Find It! Bham’ icon checks to see if the University subscribes to the electronic full-text of the reference. The box that opens up may present you with a range of different options - click on any ‘Go’ icons to try to access the full-text. Remember that you may need the proxy server to access the full-text of e-journals off-campus (see the ‘IS Proxy’ link at the bottom of every page in eLibrary for further details). NEXT

20. If the electronic full-text isn’t available at the University, click on: ‘Click here for further options’ This will tell you if we hold a print copy of the journal. Click here to start again

21. It would be better to read the information icons next to resources to find out which are most relevant (after a while you will know!) so you are not wading through hundreds of results. Also note that you can only cross-search 10 databases at a time – so make them the most relevant ones and you will only have to search once! NEXT

22. To improve your search techniques it is worth considering the pros and cons of cross-searching a number of databases: - Quick- Covers a range of resources in one go.- All resources listed on eLibrary are of high academic quality (compared to what you would get from a search on Google) Advantages NEXT

23. - Relatively limited search options compared to that of individual databases (eg field searching and thesaurus etc)- Not all databases in eLibrary are cross-searchable (so you may be missing key articles / resources)To access these you will need to go to the resource itself. Disadvantages NEXT

24. In the light of this newly-acquired knowledge do you wish to? • Return to the cross-searching option and try again 2) Return to the very beginning to start again 1 2

25. If you scroll through the list you can choose the Social Science Citation Index, part of Web of Science (on the Web of Knowledge platform) – this is a key resource for many social sciences. NEXT

26. This finds 39 results, all with Findit@bham links back to our electronic journals on elibrary NEXT

27. Carrying out searches in the native interfaces of databases has some very strong advantages: - Quality results. You will be searching high-quality resources, suitable for academic use. - You can conduct more sophisticated searches within the native interfaces of many databases. NEXT

28. Obviously this route is not the best one to take as a starting point if you are looking for introductory information on a topic – in which case you are advised to do a quick cross-search!But if you have more time and want too be comprehensive and find the most relevant articles, you are advised to search the key databases for your subject and use their native interfaces to construct a quality search.To find out more about the most relevant databases for your subject area, look at your subject guide:http://www.is.bham.ac.uk/ppm/publications/ Click here to start again