Christmas Vacation

If you’re away from Sheffield for the Christmas Vacation remember that the library can offer support to students in various ways:

• The Information Skills Resource features valuable tutorials in literature searching, referencing, plagiarism, reference management and more.

• If you need to contact the Library email the HelpDesk - library@sheffield.ac.uk (Please note that the HelpDesk will not be able to respond until the Library reopens on 2nd January).

• If you’re having trouble accessing electronic resources check the eResources Service Status page.

Merry Christmas, see you in January!

Searching for your research project

Need to search for literature for a research project?

Start with a search for books on the StarPlus University Collections tab.

Then move onto searching for journal articles. The Articles and Databases tab in StarPlus defaults to search Primo Central- a general, multidisciplinary database. This will give you quick, quality results. Make sure you have signed into StarPlus by clicking ‘University members’ at the top of the page.

For a more specific search, use databases. Find the databases useful to you on your Subject Guide: http://www.shef.ac.uk/library/subjects/subjects. Subject Guides also give links to other relevant information sources.

Search tips: Make sure you think about your keywords and any alternative words or spellings that could be used. Learn more about constructing your search here: https://librarydevelopment.group.shef.ac.uk/shef-only/info_skills/successful_db.html

Use the ‘Find it’ buttons in databases to check access (Print and electronic) to articles of interest.

BL maps update- get involved!

Two collections of maps have recently been added to the British Library online map gallery: 

1.       Goad fire insurance plans of British and Irish towns, 1886-1930, approx. 2,500 maps

2.       Military maps of WW1 and the US Civil War, including trench maps and campaign charts, approx. 225 maps

Help the British Library georeference the Goad fire insurance plans! Further information here: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/magnificentmaps/2013/11/2700-new-maps-online-for-georeferencing.html

BoB upgrade: offline 13-23 December

A new version of Box of Broadcasts (BoB) - the online off-air TV and radio recording service – is due to be launched on 6 January 2014. The service is being upgraded as the result of a project between BUFVC, JISC and the BBC. Planned changes include a fresh look and feel together with improved searching and navigation. There will also be new content, including access to more than 800,000 new BBC TV and radio programmes from the BBC archive and an additional 13 foreign language channels.

As this is a substantial upgrade, BoB will be offline from 13 to 23 December 2013 to prepare for the new system. This means that you will not be able to access BoB during this period. The new system should be available over the Christmas holiday period, but will be unsupported prior to the official launch in January.

For more information on the upgrade, see 'BoB National is getting an upgrade' or follow @bufvc_bob on Twitter to keep up to date with the latest news on the launch.

Managing references in Google Scholar

Google Scholar has just brought out a new feature that allows you to save and organise the references you find when searching.

Once you're logged into your Google account simply activate 'My Library' from Google Scholar and then whenever you want to send a reference to your Library just click 'save' underneath each search result.

From 'My Library' you can create different labels to organise your references into groups, making them easy to find, and you can also export your references to endnote or other more advanced reference management software.

For more information on other reference management tools see the Library webpages.