New improved Box of Broadcasts

On 1 August the new Box of Broadcasts went live, with a fresh look, enhanced video quality and more powerful searching capabilities. Throughout September a whole host of improvements have been made:

• A platform working across desktop, iOS and Android devices
• More powerful searching capabilities
• Better programme coverage and a permanent archive of all broadcast content from nine channels: BBC1 London / BBC2 / BBC4 / ITV London / Channel 4 / More4 / Channel 5 / BBC Radio 4 / BBC Radio 4 Extra
• Better thumbnail previews on search results
• Preview clips before saving
• Label your own clips
• Personalised email alerts when programmes are ready to view
• More detailed citation data

The first time you connect to the new BoB website, you'll be asked to complete a short form to set up your account. Please use the same email address that you used on the old BoB website. If you'd already created clips and playlists in the old BoB system you'll be able to import them to the new one.

New Library eresources

We're continually working towards enriching our collections to support the strategic aims of the Faculty of Social Sciences and the wider University through our Strategic Funds for Learning & Teaching, and for Research. We've consulted widely to support these major purchase decisions and we're pleased to announce a range of new resources that are available now, or in the near future.

We'll be blogging in more detail about individual resources throughout the year. New content that will be of particular interest for social sciences include:

• ENDS Report - environmental news and policy

• Euromonitor Passport - global business intelligence

• Gallup Analytics - opinion poll data from around the world

• Newspaper archives - including Economist, FT, Japan Times, Sunday Times

• OECD iLibrary - additional content

• Oxford Scholarship Online - additional content

We would be very interested to hear about the impact of these resources on research or learning, so if you have any evidence or feedback to share, please get in touch.

Box of Broadcasts (BoB) upgrade

Box of Broadcasts (BoB) is being upgraded during August 2016. The new BoB interface goes live on 1 August 2016, but there will be limited content and functionality during the upgrade period. There won't be any access to saved clips and playlists, or some archive content broadcast before 1 July 2016. The service should be fully restored, along with new functionality, by September 2016. BoB apologise for any inconvenience caused during the upgrade period.

We'll update you on the exciting new functions in September!

Business Source Premier

Looking for company and business information? Our subject guide will help you find the right resource for you. 

Business Source Premier is a business research database, with full text access to leading titles such as Harvard Business Review. It also provides company profiles, which will be useful for any student preparing for job applications or interviews.

The database has text to speech (read aloud) functionality in English for documents in html format.

If you create a personalised account within the database, you can organise your search results in folders and add notes to documents that you save. You can also save searches, create alerts and RSS feeds. Apps for iPhone and Android devices are available.

This database will be of interest to students and researchers in a range of disciplines across the University. To get access, open StarPlus from the My Services menu in MUSE, type Business Source Premier into the University Collections search box and follow the View It/view full text links to the database.

Finding and searching databases

Databases index information about published journal articles, conference papers and other academic documents.  Find databases that are useful for your subject in our Subject Guides. 

If you know the database you want to use, search for the name of the database on the University Collections tab in StarPlus, click ‘View It’, ‘View full text’ and then ‘Connect to...’ under the Quick Links on the right-hand side.

It is worth spending time thinking about your search before you start - list relevant keywords and search terms and any alternatives. For example, if you are searching for global warming, you may also want to search for climate change and greenhouse effect. Consider different spellings such as colour/color, and any technical terms or abbreviations.

If you are searching for a phrase, use quotation marks to keep the words together, e.g. “global warming”, “European Union”.   An asterisk can be used to end a word in a variety of ways. For example, ethic* will find results that include ethic, ethics, ethically, ethical. This is also useful for words which can have alternative spellings, for example, behavio* will find results for behaviour(s), behavior(s), behavioural or behavioral.
 
Our Successful Database Searching tutorial will help you plan your search further. Or why not come to one of our Information Skills Workshops in the Diamond?

StarPlus for all - Top Tips

 








StarPlus, the Library catalogue, can be accessed from your MUSE account (under My services) or from the Library web pages at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/library.

Remember to click on the University members link at the top of the page if you are accessing StarPlus from the Library web pages (when you access StarPlus from MUSE, you will be automatically signed on to the catalogue). Signing on to StarPlus will give you full access to resources and features including the e-Shelf and your online Library account.

Search under the University Collections tab to find: books, ebooks, journals, databases, theses and multimedia.  Enter keywords into the search box then refine your results later.

Use the Articles and More tab to search for journal articles from databases.  All results shown will be available for you to access online.

Top tips

• Use quotation marks when searching for a phrase, e.g. “global warming”.
• Use an asterisk at the end of a word to represent alternative endings. For example, educat* will search for: education, educating, educational etc.
• Use the e-Shelf to organise, print, email and push your search results into reference management software. Add search results to your e-Shelf by clicking on the star icon (located on the left of each search result).
• To request a book that is out on loan, click on the Get It tab and then Request.
• Look at the Subject Guides to identify the key databases and online resources for your subject area. Link to the Subject Guides from the Guides & Tutorials box on the home page of StarPlus.
• Search for and connect to databases from the University Collections tab.
• Take a look at our StarPlus tutorial to learn more.