LIBRARY
Education
A guide to finding information in the Library
Who?
To help you find books, journals, Web sites (even maths equipment, posters or costumes!) for
Education, you have two Subject Librarians, Hazel Rothera and Ruth Dryden. Hazel looks after
Education generally while Ruth looks after the School Experience Centre (see page 3). You can
contact us in person, by phone, by email or on Facebook – details on page 5.
Where?
Harcourt Hill Library holds the main Education collections, including the School Experience Centre
which is full of resources to take into school and use in the classroom . You may also find useful
resources at the Headington Library where the arts/humanities, social sciences, psychology and
higher education collections are.
Online:
 The Library web pages at http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library provide a range of information
about the Library including access to our Electronic library
 The Library’s Education pages provide a range of information specifically for education
students: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/educ.html
 Our Facebook page for news and updates: http://www.facebook.com/harcourtlibrary
 Reading lists online with links to all resources: http://resourcelists.brookes.ac.uk
How?
The Library Catalogue
 Everything we have in the Library and online, and where it is
 All the Brookes Library sites, exactly where things are, how many copies, whether they are
available right now or are out on loan, and if they’re out on loan, when they’re due back
 From anywhere via the Web, no password: http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/brookes/
 Reserve books that are out or that you want sent from another site, renew your books and check
your fines – just use My loans and reservations
 Try out the video and audio tutorials on how to use the Catalogue (linked from the Catalogue
home page)
The Education Web pages
Lots of help here with finding resources outside the Library, like Web sites, organisations, statistics:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/educ.html
WWW.BROOKES.AC.UK/LIBRARY
What?
Books – for a general introduction to a topic or an overview of established research or practice
Journal articles – for cutting-edge thinking, opinion or research findings on a topic
Newspapers - for news (obviously), views, debate, letters, job advertisements
Official Publications – for what the Government or other public bodies think
Statistics – for how much, how many, how often
The Web – for all of the above and much more, as long as you know where to look!
Books
I want a book about teaching theory or
education in general
I want a children’s book or a resource I can
take into school and use in the classroom
Look on the ground floor of the Library in the
main Reading Room
Look in the School Experience Centre,
downstairs in the Library
Finding books on the Catalogue:
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To find a specific book, type the author’s surname and/or some words from the title
If you want to find books on a particular topic or subject, use Keyword
To narrow down just to Harcourt Hill, choose it from Library Location on the left of the results page
To search for just items from the School Experience Centre, choose that from Collection on the left
When you find a book you want, click on either the title or “Check Availability” to find out:
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Which library site(s) the book is at (or whether it’s an e-book, available online)
The shelfmark (the number on the spine of the book that tells you where it is on the shelf)
How long you can borrow it for (or whether it’s Reference and can’t be borrowed)
How many copies are available at the moment (click Expand All to see copies that are out)
How to reserve a book if it’s out or you want a copy sent from another site
If you want to browse the shelves, here are some shelfmarks to get you started. Don’t forget to
check the Oversize section for the same numbers as well, as lots of useful material is there.
Early Years
Education research
Further education
Higher education
372.21
370.72
374
378
Primary education
Primary maths
Primary reading
Primary science
372
372.7
372.4
372.35
Secondary education
Secondary science
Special needs
Teachers and teaching
373
373.05
371.9
371.1
Some of our most heavily used textbooks each term are put on Short Loan; they are kept behind the
Library counter and can currently be borrowed for 4 hours or 24 hours (heavy fines if you’re late!)
Written by Helen Whittaker, August 2007: revised by Hazel Rothera, 2008-2013
The School Experience Centre located downstairs in the Library is a collection of teaching resources,
primarily for use in the classroom. The collection covers all kinds of materials for both primary and
secondary - books, DVDs, resource packs, CDs, CD-ROMs, posters, games, musical instruments, the
list is endless!
 All resources are listed on the Library Catalogue.
 Choose ‘School Experience Centre’ Collection on the left of your search results page if you want to
search for items just from here.
 There are handouts and posters available in the SEC to help you find resources on particular topics
(castles, weather, picture books...) or for specific age groups.
 To search just for Resource Packs or Posters, include those words in your keyword search (eg
“resource pack water”
 There is a handout on the School Experience Centre available from the Library, or on the Web:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/educ/educsecguide.html
Journals
Journals (magazines for academic subjects) are an important source of information as they contain
the latest thinking and research within a subject area. The Library has over a thousand educationrelated journals, some in print (paper), some online, and some in both formats. The Library Catalogue
holds details of all our print journals and the majority of our electronic journals.
Finding journals:
You can look both print and online journals up on the Library Catalogue at
http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/brookes/ :
 Type the title of the journal (eg. british journal of educational studies – capital letters don’t
matter), not the title of an individual article, into the search box
 If you get lots of books in your search results, select “Electronic & Printed Journals Catalogue”
from the “Collection” list on the left of the results page
More detailed guidance on finding journals and journal articles is available in our separate handout,
“Finding journals and journal articles for Education”, available from the Library at Harcourt Hill or on
the Web: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/educ/findjnlseducation.doc
 The last 10 years of all current journals in Harcourt Hill Library are held in the Main Library on the
Ground Floor.
 Issues prior to this, and journals that are no longer current, are kept in our closed access Stack.
Please ask at the Helpdesk to see these.
Finding specific articles:
You can’t look up individual journal articles on the Catalogue. If you have a reference for a specific
journal article and want to see if we have it in the Library, look up the journal title on the Catalogue.
If you don’t already have specific articles in mind and want to find out what articles exist on a
particular topic, you’ll need to use a database – see next page.
Written by Helen Whittaker, August 2007: revised by Hazel Rothera, 2008-2013
Finding articles from journals – using Databases
Databases are like search engines (eg Google), but instead of searching the Web, they search through
collections of journal articles (and sometimes books, book chapters, reports and other published
material) to find references for you on the topic you type in. Unlike search engines, databases cover
printed resources as well as online ones, and focus on the kinds of scholarly, academic and peerreviewed material that you will need for many of your assignments and for research.
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Databases may cover a specific subject area or a range of subjects. For example, Brookes Library
subscribes to some Education databases, and some multidisciplinary ones which cover a wide range
of subjects.
When you search a database you will be presented with a list of references (citations) which match
your search word/s. Each reference will provide brief details which you need to track the item down;
for example, a journal article reference will contain author, article title, journal title, year, volume and
issue number, and page numbers.
Most databases provide abstracts (summaries) of articles. There are also a number of databases
which contain full text articles (the whole article)
For links to all the key Education databases and more help, go to the Library’s Education Web pages:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/educ.html and click on Databases.
For help getting started with a database search, go to the Library’s Education Web pages:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/educ.html and click on “Guides, handouts, tutorials and other help”
Newspapers
The key weekly newspapers for Education are the Times Educational Supplement (TES) and Times
Higher Education (THE)
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Times Educational Supplement: the last 4 months are available in Harcourt Hill Library
Times Higher Education: the last 4 months are available in Harcourt Hill Library
Both are also available online (TES from 1997 onwards, THE from 1994 – follow links from the
Catalogue
 Both titles also have websites where you can see current stories, job ads etc and register for
discussion forums and a wide range of online resources
Other newspapers, including the Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian are available online from the
Library Web site - click on News sources under USE E-RESOURCES on the home page.
Official Publications and Statistics
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The Department for Education website at http://www.education.gov.uk/ provides a range of upto-date education statistics and many official publications.
The UK National Statistics website at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ contains a range of statistical
data. Select Children, Education and Skills from the list of themes.
For the latest official publications, check the website of the issuing body,
eg. Ofsted: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk
The Library holds a range of official publications and statistics, all listed on the Catalogue – try a
keyword search for “education statistics” “school statistics” etc.
Written by Helen Whittaker, August 2007: revised by Hazel Rothera, 2008-2013
The Web
The Web can be a fantastic, quick and convenient source of information for education – from policy or
guidance to teaching resources, classroom ideas or TV programmes – but it’s vast, growing all the time,
and there’s plenty of out-of-date information and irrelevant rubbish. Where do you start?
Get the Library to do the work for you! – use our collections of recommended Education Web sites:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/educ.html and click the “Web sites” link.
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Get trained up – check out our “How to find what you want on the Web” page:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/educ/educinternetsearching.html
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Be critical - because anyone can put anything up on the Web, it’s vital to make sure you know how
to decide whether a Web site is appropriate to use in your academic work. Have a look at the
Library’s guidelines to evaluating Web pages: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/webeval.html
Keeping up-to-date with your research
The following databases are useful for keeping up-to-date with current research (in addition to doing
searches just for current material on the Education databases discussed above). Access from the Library
Web pages at http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/eleclib.html
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Web of Science: consists of the 3 Citation Indexes: Arts and Humanities, Science and Social
Science Citation Index including education. Weekly update. You can also set up an alert to
receive emails of the latest references on your topic.
Zetoc: covers current journals and conference proceedings in most subjects. You can also
subscribe to the ZETOC Alert service, to receive e-mail bulletins of journal tables of contents
and details of new material relevant to your subject.
Index to Theses: a comprehensive listing of all UK higher degree theses; items recently added
to the database provide summaries.
Managing your references using EndNote
EndNote enables you to collect, store and manage references in your own personal ‘Library’. There is
a desktop version available on the Oxford Brookes network, and a Web version freely available to all
Brookes staff and students.
EndNote is recommended for anyone, including those working at undergraduate level, to improve
efficiency when studying, doing research and creating bibliographies. You can enter references
manually into your Endnote desktop/Web Library or transfer them directly from databases. References
from your Library can then be inserted into your Word documents and used to create bibliographies in
Brookes Harvard style.
For more information, see our Library Web pages at http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/endnote.html
Help!!
For more information about anything in this guide, or for help in finding information on any aspect of
Education, contact your Subject Librarians, Hazel Rothera and Ruth Dryden. They can be contacted
in person at Harcourt Hill Library, by telephone on 01865 488220 (+ 44 1865 488220 from outside the
UK), by email at educationlibrarians@brookes.ac.uk or through Google Chat or the Library’s Facebook
page - do get in touch!
Written by Helen Whittaker, August 2007: revised by Hazel Rothera, 2008-2013