Using library resources
A comprehensive literature search means you access and read a wide range of material about your topic. These may be in 'hard copy' (this means as a physical resource in a UoB or external library) or as digital resources (like ebooks, ejournals and high quality websites).
Below is a list of search tools and resources available via the library.
You can find books and electronic books (ebooks) by searching the library catalogue.
You can also find journal titles and databases here - but you cannot search for individual journal articles on the library catalogue.
DISCOVER is your single search tool that allows you to search most of the electronic resources and the catalogue simultaneously and provides you with current availability information on library catalogue items.
Results from any electronic resource can be saved to your personal folder, and your saved preferences are available using DISCOVER.
Academic Search Complete Covers most areas of academic study and provides full text for more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. Includes a large number of education journals published in Britain and other parts of the world. Included in DISCOVER.
Communication and Mass Media Complete This is an excellent database with comprehensive coverage in journalism and aspects of the mass media. Included in DISCOVER.
SocIndex with Full Text A wide-ranging social science database with links to some full text articles. Included in DISCOVER.
Education Research Complete Includes citations and abstracts from more than 2,400 journals, as well as full text for more than 1,300 journals. It also includes full text for over 500 books and monographs, and 3,000 full text for numerous education-related conference papers. Included in DISCOVER.
JSTOR This database includes over 1,700 academic journals with full text available back to the first volume. The subject coverage is broad across the arts, humanities, social sciences, law, life sciences and health. Included in DISCOVER.
Library Hub Discover (formerly COPAC) An excellent source of information about books published in Britain and throughout the world, it gives access to the merged online catalogues of 110 major British research libraries, including the British Library. Not included in DISCOVER.
PsycINFO The database of the American Psychological Association (APA). Excellent starting point for psychology related material such as cognitive development, child behaviour and learning theories. Included in DISCOVER.
PsycARTICLES From the American Psychological Association (APA), is a definitive source of full text, peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific articles in psychology. It contains more than 200,000 articles from 100 journals. Included in DISCOVER.
Scopus This database indexes a high number of peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers across the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences. Its content is included in DISCOVER but the individual database also encompasses tools to track citations so you can see how often and where a paper has been cited.
Repository (UoB) The University of Bedfordshire Repository is an open access repository giving you access to the continuing research activity undertaken at the university.
Web of Science A research database (citations only) covering a wide range of subjects. Useful User guide. Included in DISCOVER.
Credo Reference A searchable collection containing 100 reference sources including subject dictionaries, encyclopedias, biographical sources and quotations. Contains over 150,000 entries of facts, words, concepts, and people.
Oxford Reference Online brings together language and subject reference works from one of the world's biggest reference publishers (Oxford University Press) into a single cross-searchable resource.The Core Collection contains over 100 dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. The Premium Collection offers all of the above, plus information across a broad subject range from titles in the Oxford Companions Series. Video tutorial.
Newsbank contains the full text of many UK newspapers, both local and national.
UK Newspapers (Lexis Library) This is a collection of newspapers in the Lexis Library database. Lexis is primarily a law resource, but can also be used to search newspaper articles. Includes TES and Times Higher Education.
UK Press Online: a growing digital library of British newspaper archives from the 19th century to the present day with emphasis on the tabloid press. There is also a specific collection of British newspapers during World War Two featuring the Daily Worker, Fascist Week, Blackshirt and the Yorkshire Post.
EThos A database of over a quarter of a million records of doctoral dissertations from UK Higher Education. Some Phd theses are available as full text. Individual registration is required to download the full text of a thesis, but is not necessary for searching the database and viewing bibliographic records.
Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD) This is an index of over 3.5 million electronic theses and dissertations, freely available online.
Free resources
Below is a list of free resources that may be of use.
The LINGUIST List An easy to use site which provides a comprehensive list of sources of linguistic information. The Societies page provides lists of and links to linguistic associations all over the world. It also provides information on relevant journals.
your Dictionary 'The Global Language Resource'. Links to most types of dictionary.
Ethnologue The Ethnologue brings together the best information available on languages of the world. It includes bibliographic references, publications and software resources.
Institute for Natural Language Processing This site is useful for computational linguistics.
Google Scholar concentrates on academic-quality resources. The good stuff (recent and relevant) is often behind firewalls so you'll need to sign-in as a UoB student when prompted - because of this many people prefer to start from with DISCOVER.
The Linguistic Society of America Provides links to other organisations, useful linguistic sites, frequently asked questions and lists of resources.
British Association for Applied Linguistics. (BAAL)This is the professional organisation in the UK which provides a forum for those interested in language and the applications of linguistics.
European Association for Computer-Assisted Language Learning. This provides European focus for the promulgation of innovative research, development and practice relating to the use of technologies for language learning.
Office for National Statistics UK's exhaustive collection of statistics which includes downloadable charts and reports.
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) brings together a wide range of statistics relating the HE sector.
Education in Video is available via Alexander Street Press. It includes excellent instructional videos showing classroom footage and covers all areas of teaching from bullying to primary science.
You may also find the British Library's archive of sound recordings useful. It includes everything from readings of traditional stories like Anansi to British birdsong.
Please follow the link to access details about Open Access resources.
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