Research

A library catalogue is a list of all the resources that the library has to offer including both print and electronic copies. The online catalogue for UCR and each of our campus libraries at Rotherham, DVC and NNC can be found at this link. http://library.rnngroup.ac.uk/

You can access this catalogue both on and off campus. You can search for:

• Keywords

• Authors

• Titles

By clicking on the 'Advanced Search' button, you can also search for ISBNs and publication dates. Once you have searched for a resource and it is listed in the results page, if you click on it, it will give you information which will help you locate the physical resource.

'Copies' refers to how many individual copies we have of that book across the different campus libraries. By clicking on the sites, it will let you know how many of those copies are available to borrow and how many are already out on loan to another student.

Libraries are divided into subject areas so each subject and as a result book is given a 'Dewey number'. This will then be placed on the spine of each book to help people locate it. The search result on the catalogue will tell you the Dewey number for a book e.g. 372.21 PAI. Each Dewey number is followed by the first three letters of the author's surname which in this case is 'PAI'. Books are shelved chronologically (in ascending number order).

You can see examples of what these will look like below.

Some sources have particular features to help you select relevant information. It is always helpful to know when a source was published so you can assess how up to date it is and use aspects such as the contents and index of an academic textbook to evaluate whether it will be helpful or not. Academic journals articles (both physical and electronic) provide summaries called abstracts which give an overview of the contents. These abstracts can help you decide if you need to read the whole article. In general, materials that are more academic in nature are more likely to contain features to help you assess what is inside. However, the title of any information source should give you a clue as to the contents.

Databases like Ebsco and search engines allow you to use techniques which help to narrow down, refine or broaden the results of your search so the information you find is more relevant to you. Sometimes these are made explicit through the 'Advanced Search' function but in other cases, you can just use them in the normal search bar. The most useful ones to know are:

• AND - putting AND between two keywords or phrases asks the search to look for information containing both keywords

• NOT - putting NOT between two keywords asks the search to look for the first term but not the second

• OR - putting OR between two keywords asks the search to look for the first word/phrase or the second

• " " - quotation marks around a phrase enable you to search for an exact phrase e.g. "cognitive behavioural therapy"

An E-resource is an electronic version of a resource so you can access it online. Some E-resources are E-books and you may also come across E-journals or E-journal articles when you are searching for information. (Journals are highly specialised, subject specific publications that look like magazines and are frequently published with current information). There are also other online databases for you to use. The college provides subscription-based e-resources which you can use to support your learning. This means you have access to high quality information for free! You are more than welcome to use any of these resources freely but some of them are particularly relevant to certain courses. Visit your subject LibGuide or the general Library site for more information on how to access them.