Exploiting
information:
getting the most
from the
OU Library
March 2016
Our session will cover..
•
•
•
•
Literature review and sources of help
The importance of citations
Keeping up to date
Bibliographic management tools
A good literature review will..
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
clarify your understanding of the field
explain the rationale for your research
evaluate the results of previous research
define key concepts and ideas
identify research in related areas that are
generalizable or transferable to your topic
6. identify relevant methodological issues.
7. cover all important relevant literature
8. be up-to-date
Library
Using citations
• Helps measure the impact an article makes on the
community at large
• Properly grounds the research through an appropriate
review of the literature
• Considered to be one of the most reliable of resources in
tracing the development of an idea across the multitude
of disciplines that are part of our body of knowledge
Web of Science
The original citation research source extracting the
citation information from the articles in over
10,000 journals from almost every discipline.
https://www.open.ac.uk/libraryservices/resource/database:257166&f=126
An abstract and citation
database of over
14,000 scientific,
technical, medical and
social science titles,
from 1966 onwards.
The citation tracker
allows the user to find
articles that have cited
specific authors
https://www.open.ac.uk/libraryser
vices/resource/database:330495
&f=126
SCOPUS
Keeping up to
date
Introducing you to ways of keeping up-to-date
using electronic tools
Email alerts, RSS feeds, social media
• Set up, save and re-run your searches against latest
additions to databases
• Set up profiles to receive automatically the contents
pages of journal issues
• Receive notification of articles recently published and
added to a database
• Keep up to date with breaking news
• Discover new resources in your field
Email alerting services
• Two types
–Journal table of contents (TOC) based
–Search based: keywords, authors, subject
• Examples
–Zetoc Alert
–IEEE Explore/JSTOR/WOS
–Library Search
Zetoc
• Zetoc provides access to the
British Libraries Electronic Table
of Contents of around 20,000
current journals and around 16,000
conference proceedings published
per year
http://www.open.ac.uk/libraryservices/resource/database:286975&f=126
Other updating tools
• Setting up RSS feeds
–Netvibes: http://www.netvibes.com
–Feedly: https://feedly.com/i/welcome
• Social networking tools
–ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net
–Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/
–Twitter: http://www.twitter.com
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/the_orb
/
Bibliographic management
tools
What if the OU Library doesn’t
have what I need?
• Use the document delivery service to order books and
photocopies of articles via the British Library
http://www.open.ac.uk/library/node/40333
• Borrow from other libraries using the SCONUL Access
scheme: http://www.open.ac.uk/library/help-andsupport/libraries-near-you
• Use the ‘suggest new titles’ form
http://www.open.ac.uk/library/library-resources/suggest-newtitles
Help and training resources
• Training sessions, online or F2F
http://www.open.ac.uk/library/training-and-events/onlinetraining-sessions
• Subject specialists within the Library
• Immediate help via Library helpdesk
• 24/7 Webchat
Image credits
All images from Britannica Image Quest
• Gold panning on the Fraser River, British Columbia,
Canada. Universal Images Group
• The Science Museum, City of Arts and Sciences,
Valencia, Spain. Universal Images Group
• Cosmic microwave telescope, Owens Valley, Calif.
David Nunuk/ Science Photo Library
• Parallel imaging. Sandia National Laboratories Science
Photo Library