The University of Queensland

This webpage is designed as a quick guide to get you thinking about the range of information resources available and ways of improving your information-seeking skills.

If you would like more guidance on any of these issues, or on research tools and techniques which are specific to your discipline, please contact your Research Information Service librarian.

You can also view a printable version of this page.

Information Skills and Resources

Personalised help — Using databases — Reviewing the literature — Different tools for different purposes — Refining by type — Search History — Controlled Vocabulary — Full-Text Databases — Cited-Reference Searching — Patents — Theses — Reference tools — Troubleshooting problems accessing electronic library resources — Searching the internet — Keeping up-to-date — Document Delivery — Networking — Open Access — Analyse — Storing and managing your search results — Reflection — Going home or leaving university

 

Working through an information search on your topic or some aspect of your research with your Research Information Service librarian is an effective way to build knowledge that will become intuitive, especially if you have a task about which you are unsure, or for which you have had unexpected results. Contact your Research Information Service librarian.

 

For any of the points below your Research Information Service librarian can provide further detail, clarification or problem-solving.

 

 

In 2008 first year Bachelor of Science students were asked:

 

Which search strategy would retrieve the most citations in an electronic database?

 

1. conservation OR environment
2. conservation AND environment
3. conservation NOT environment
4. conservation
5. environment

 

260 answered B,C,D or E. If you agree with those students, you do not understand standard operators used in databases. Have a look at our Database Searching How-to Guide.

 

The same techniques are usually available in Keyword searching in Library Catalogues.

 

 

 

In 2008 first year Bachelor of Science students were asked:

 

You are conducting a literature search for an essay topic. First you should:

 

1. Start with a basic search on the World Wide Web, using a search engine (e.g. Google).
2. Search for relevant text books which contain good background information or an overview of a subject.
3. Search journals for a review article of the literature in the particular subject area.
4. Search journals only for articles that are more up-to-date than information contained in books.
5. Conduct a wide search of journals.

 

302 answered A. If you agree, you are applying strategies that, while probably adequate for much basic undergraduate work, will fall short of your RHD needs.

 

 

It is quite easy these days to find some information on most topics, 'Just Google it!'

 

However some databases are designed to provide systematic answers about research across particular fields, as reflected in published science. You will have used some, but perhaps the distinctions between tools are not clear to you.

 

When you are preparing work that requires a comprehensive grasp of research on a specific topic, say, a literature review or a grant application, an answer from Google, or from electronic journals sites, may be incomplete.

 

Have a look at the Key Resources at the top of the list of databases in your field. Go to the Library Databases Gateway and click on Select a database by subject.

Those in Key Resources are what are sometimes called 'bibliographic' databases (also sometimess 'article', 'journal', 'indexing', 'abstracting' databases, or just 'indexes' or 'abstracts') This type of database will index all journals in a defined field and will index selected articles from other journals. Trained indexers who are also scientists are employed to scan this literature (and sometimes web publications and papers in books and conference proceedings). For most databases they will enrich the description of articles using subject terms (descriptors) and sometimes codes (see Controlled Vocabulary).

 

Some of these databases share a platform, for example Web of Knowledge or Proquest, with shared search, browse, mark, download and full text linking features, though the databases themselves may still differ (e.g. descriptors will usually differ). Depending on your topic you may use several key databases on different platforms.

 

Look through the Full List of databases for your field. As well as indexing databases you will find here databases of data (statistical, geographic, biodiversity and so on), and electronic journal sites (see Full-Text Databases).

 

Some databases cover the older literature to the early 20th century, or, in the case of Zoological Record, back to 1864. There are print indexes that go back further. Some full text databases, especially JSTOR, go back to the 19th century for some of the journals they cover.

 

 

Some databases will index books and proceedings. You may want to see only journal articles. Since indexers will label articles by publication type it is usually easy to refine your search to show only articles, or in some databases even peer-reviewed articles only. You can often use the same feature to limit results to review articles.

 

 

Unlike library catalogues, search engines and most electronic journal sites, indexing databases keep each search you do in a given search session. You can combine searches and recombine in different permutations using 'Search History' or 'History' options. This is a much more flexible base for refining searches than using multi-window search boxes or, in single windows, creating complicated 'nested' searches using parentheses. Begin by splitting your search question into separate concepts. Search one concept at a time (combining synonymous terms with OR).

 

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To search databases effectively, it is important to understand the concept of controlled vocabulary. Many databases use standardised topical or technical terms (descriptors or subject headings).

 

Unless you specifically select a field to search, such as article title, author etc, when you search a database you are searching the descriptors as well as article titles and abstracts. You will thereby inadvertently benefit from the additional indexing. For example, if the indexers associate a common name with a taxonomic descriptor you will get all records even if you do not know or have not used appropriate scientific names. The same applies with chemicals, genes, parts, structures and so on.

Nevertheless if you are not yet very familiar with the terminology for your topic the keywords you use may be too limited to get good results, even with the indexers' hidden help.

 

You may need reference help (see Reference tools) or standard works to improve your keywords or you may need to find and use the database descriptors yourself. One easy way of doing so is to do a very specific search aimed to get highly relevant (but perhaps very few) results and then look carefully at how the best of these have been indexed. Restricting your search, or part of it, to a Title field search often helps. Then you can usually just click useful descriptors in the best records to initiate a search on that term, or copy and paste them into a search box.

 

You can also look at the full list of descriptors yourself to choose terms - look for aThesaurus of descriptors (in Pubmed look for MESH), or for a search icon e.g. in Web of Knowledge databases use:

 

 

There are now very large databases which provide the full text of millions of journal articles and books. Some are produced by major journal publishers, such as ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Liebert Online, Wiley/Blackwell, Oxford Journals, Cambridge Journals. Some are produced by commercial aggregators using the product from different commercial publishers. Some, such as JSTOR and BioOne, are non-profit and include journals from scientific societies.

 

Many of these full-text resources are also indexed in Scopus and Google Scholar.

 

Because you are searching whole articles you need to make your searches as specific as possible. Use technical terms specific to your topic, or lots of keywords combined with AND, or specify bound phrases (see Database Searching How-to Guide), or search in specific fields only (Title or Author or both).

 

Referencing software can increasingly handle full text - see Storing and managing your search results

 

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Another way of improving your results is to search by cited references. The principle is simple: if there is an article which is fundamental to your research topic, it may be helpful to find later publications which cite that article. Citation searching is becoming widely available in full text databases. The original citation searcher, Citation Search in the Web of science databases, is still the best way to carry out a methodical citation search. Note also that the other databases on the Web of Knowledge platform allow linking through to citations in the Web of science. See the How-To Guide on Cited Reference Searching. For a broad discussion of citation counts see our Research Output and Input guide - click the Citation Counts tab. The tracking of citations to a paper is a sub-set of wide-ranging metrics which provide quite specific information on research, researchers, and research institutions. For a full guide to those options see our Research Output and Impact web page.

 

There is much technical information that is published only in Patents and it is suggested that no literature searching is complete without considering published patents from many countries.The most comprehensive patent database is Derwent Innovations Index..This database brings together the patents published in 41 countries.  It succinctly summarizes in English the most important information in the patent and usually links to the full text of the patent. Derwent Innovations Index linked to the Derwent Chemistry resource which allows chemical searching including chemical structure searching.  A large proportion of chemical research is proprietary and published only in patents.

 

There is often useful information in theses which has not (or not yet) been published elsewhere.  See the UQ libraryHow-To Guide on Finding Theses.

 

In theory you may not need basic reference given the advanced stage of your studies. However science has changed, with ever narrower specialisation and, partly because of this, much more cross-disciplinary and team based work. As a result from time to time you will need basic knowledge of some field that relates to, but is not central to, your work. You are not dependant on print reference alone. SeeQuick reference on the library front page. Also, for both print and online reference, have a look through some Subject Guides.

 

 

If you are having a problem accessing an electronic library resource (database, journal article, e-book etc) - look at its Catalogue record.  If it is a journal first check the years available. It may be that it is only available from certain computers or has a maximum number of users. Look at the annotations or at Access Info. Access from home can be less reliable than access on campus. Try on campus or from a library computer or even try a computer in the office next door.  Try searching with a different browser - Firefox or Internet Explorer or Safari. The problems can be quite complex so you may need to contact your Research Information Service librarian for help.

 

In many databases you will see Full Text buttons or links. These will take you straight to a particular article. Sometimes these may not work from home. In addition on many sites you will see a 'Get it at UQ' link. Sometimes (perhaps from home) this may work when a full text link does not. However Get it at UQ will never be much better than about 80% effective. For 100% effectiveness you can still rely on looking up a journal in the Catalogue. Many databases provide you with a 'Holdings' or 'Your Library' check with each record in your search results which makes this very easy.

 

Passwords Help is available.

 

The most time efficient way of using the Internet is often to find a relevant site and search or browse it. So 'Just Google it!' is not always the best approach to the Internet. Look at some Subject Gateways or look in part four of Subject Guides relevant to your field.

 

In addition there are special search engines focussing on scientific information such as Scirus and Google Scholar. You should set up your 'Preferences' in resources like these so that you can access subscription-only resources more easily.

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A search of a 'bibliographic database' (see Different tools for different purposes) will not be complete if only because it may be some weeks behind actual publication of new articles. When you allow as well the time gap between completion of experiments or field studies, writing up, submission, and final publication, a database might be up to a year behind any given piece of scientific work. This is no longer an insuperable problem.

Open Access, Citation searching and Networking work well for 'breaking' news. So do conference papers. Conference and meeting abstracts and papers appear in some databases and there are some specialist tools (e.g. Conference proceedings citation index: Science). However conference material is usually easy to find on the web.

There are also specific 'alerting' tools. You can store a search on most database platforms (e.g. Web of Knowledge, Proquest, Ovid, Pubmed) and programme the database to run it again at intervals. The results are emailed to you.

You can also set up alerts from many journal websites (to receive contents lists of new issues) and publisher websites (to receive notification of new books in nominated subject areas).

 

Inevitably you will identify articles and books that you need which are not available in the UQ Library. Our document delivery service will obtain these for you. For theses and books you should consider simply contacting your Research Information Service librarian to get the item bought for the library collection.

 

 

In science what is really going on may not be reflected in any published form. Especially with regard to formative thinking, tentative or inconclusive experiments, and so on, things are as they ever were - personal contact is the key.

 

The contemporary internet and communications, especially the social and interactive web ('Web 2.0') and mobile technologies, and formal web based teaching tools like Blackboard, can enable students to rapidly establish contact networks (even if transitory) that in the past would have taken established researchers years to acquire. It still remains that older methods such as email, phone and face-to-face meetings remain the core of networking.

 

Beginning researchers may wish to accelerate this process. Discovery tools are built into some databases (see Analyse). The Open Access world also contributes. There are now science-specific social and interactive web tools. For example see myExperiment, ResearcherID, Innocentive or Science Social Networks at science@cambridge.

There are various ways to find researchers or institutions you may wish to network with. There are metrics which track research impact and influence. See our Research Output and Impact web page. See the ERA tab there for explanations and links on the federal government's Excellence in Research for Australia process. There are various ways of ranking universities. See for example Essential Science Indicators.

 

 

The world of open access is a response to rising journal prices which force libraries to cancel subscriptions. There are new peer reviewed journals that have no copyright restrictions. Some of these journals are very highly cited. As a result some commercial publishers are loosening their copyright restrictions. These journals are catalogued by the library and there are lists of open access journals.

 

Open access also involves the placement of scientific data and publications on the web, usually through a university site. The library established UQ eSpace. You can search there for UQ research and you can place your work there. There are also lists of open access repositories. See also the Scientific Commons project.

 

Open access is a good source of the most recent science. The open access world is searchable - see OIAster and Trove (previously ARROW, then Australian Research Online - ARO) at UQ eSpace. Open access material is also harvested by engines like Scopus, Scirus and Google Scholar.

 

 

Some databases, e.g. Web of Science, allow you to analyse the results after your search.You can find out who is the most prolific author in your research field.  The author's email address is usually included in the database record.You can find out which institution is publishing the most papers on the topic and the peak years of their output. You can sort by times cited to see which papers are cited the most and therefore note which papers and authors have been most influential in the research area.

 

 

When you have identified useful references, how will you store and organise them?

The library has a site licence for EndNote, a software package that allows you to create a personal database of references. It includes facilities to store electronic copies of your references and to store your working notes on the references. EndNote works with Microsoft Word to insert references in articles, your thesis or other publications, and from these generate bibliographies. It is very easy to format your document in whatever generic or journal publisher style you require. Endnote also enables you to store full text and find full text.

 

 

Effective information gathering is not solely a matter of a set of specific skills. It is about a reflective approach revolving around assessing the quality of information. Sometimes you begin with clarity about the information you want. Then you can plan. Sometimes you are being more explorative. The process becomes intuitive, but you cannot build a useful intuitive base without a reflective approach. Initial planning as appropriate, and, in action, assessment of the information obtained, the reliability of sources, the searching techniques used, the active refining of searches, recognising a key item and knowing how to spin out from that to related material; all these build that intuitive base.

 

Accurate expectations about the role of different information tools, and skills in using them, support the process. If your searching is either like wading through a mass of peripheral material or like looking for a needle in a haystack, you probably need to develop your abilities. Your Research Information Service librarian can help.

 

 

You should consider talking to your Research Information Service librarian about what resources will and will not be available to you when you leave UQ. There are some free databases and journals. Some information is available here.