Resource of the Week: Naxos Spoken Word Library

This week’s Resource of the Week is Naxos Spoken Word Library.

This database is made up of 100s of audio books covering a wide range of areas such as fiction, history, business, drama and much more. You are able to browse by collection, author, recent additions or search for an author/title.

The audio books are available to stream online and many copies are available in abridged and unabridged versions. You can also save your place in the audio book by setting up boomarks.

There are also audio books available in French, German and Portuguese.Capture1

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Resource of the Week: Romanticism: Life, literature and landscape

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This week’s resource of the week is Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape.

This databases provides access to rare and priceless literary sources, and is indispensable for anyone studying William Wordsworth or the Romantic period.

It provides access to original documentation such as verse and prose manuscripts, correspondence, diaries, travel journals and much more. It also offers a wider insight into the social, political and natural environment that shaped the work of Wordsworth. 

Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape also has a number of visual resources including an in-depth look at some of the most significant works of art during this period. You can also explore the Lake District with maps and photographs and delve into the literary life of William Wordsworth and members of his immediate family,

Access this database by clicking on the links above, or find it in the eResources A-Z list.
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Resource of the Week: London Low Life

This week the resource of the week is London Low Life.

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This is a fascinating resource which gives you an insight into life in London during the 18th, 19th and early 20th Century. Included in this resource are digital images of rare books, interactive maps, essays and online galleries.

Explore this resource and see London as you have never seen it before!

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Want to access exam papers? We’ve got your back…

So you’re looking for some past exam papers in prep for the forthcoming summer term, a.k.a exam term? Well, the College institutional repository is the place to find them and this is how you can access them…

1. Are you on campus? If yes, carry onto 2.
If no, please use CampusAnywhere (If you don’t do this, you might not be able to see the papers.)

2. If you’re using Moodle: click on the Past Exam Papers link on the right to go through to past papers for that course code only.

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3. To search the Past Papers database directly, go to the Library homepage, and click “Exam Papers”.

4. Check you are logged in by looking in the top right hand corner. If you can’t seem to access the exam papers, check the top right hand side and see if you are logged in as a guest. If you are, log out and then log in using your Royal Holloway username and password.exam papers login

You can browse by Department or search for your course code using the search function. And the good news? All exam papers can be downloaded as PDFs.

If you have any questions, please let us know! Happy revising and good luck in all of your exams!

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Resource of the Week: KNOVEL

Resource of the Week is *insert drum roll here* Knovel!Knovel 1

It is totally the go-to resource for engineers, but it is also excellent for those studying biology, physics and computer science! This electronic resource provides technical information with specialised search tools and has three elements: an epic e-book collection, a nifty equation solver and a materials property database.

The e-books

Knovel’s e-books cover a wide range of subjects from biochemistry & biology to electronic engineering and nanotechnology. You can browse the different subjects we subscribe or search for items on a specific topic using the search box.

Its power lies in its ability to search the full text of books – so if you searched LibrarySearch for example, the search terms you entered will just be matched to title words or the subject headings, so you’d need to keep your searches simple and broad. With Knovel however, the search you put in will be matched with the content in the e-books, so you can be pretty specific and you’ll be taken straight to the part of the book it is on.

The equation solver

This is totally a hidden gem! You can find the equation solver under the ‘Tools’ heading at the top left hand side.

Knovel Equation solver

It contains hundreds of equation worksheets combined with browser-based calculation software with export capabilities. You can browse by subject and filter by keyword once you’ve picked a subject.

Data search

Data search allows you to search for property data of thousands of materials including metals and composites. You can find the link to the data search function under the search bar on Knovel’s homepage.Data search

You can search by material name, property name or both then manipulate the data easily. You can specify numerical values and/or ranges plus units of measurement. The results are usually presented in tabular or graphical form and some of the graphs are interactive, allowing you to manipulate the data further.

I find that it is really this search tool that make Knovel the bee’s knees of science e-resources!

For further help and guidance, don’t forget to check out Knovel’s own help pages and of course you can always contact your very own sciences librarian (me!) here: Leanne.workman@rhul.ac.uk

Resource of the Week: Web of Science

Web of Science (WoS) is a bibliographic database; that is, a database which shows what has been written on a topic, but does not necessarily provide you with full-text access. Despite the name, Web of Science (WoS) contains something for everybody. It includes the Science, Social Science, and Arts and Humanities subject areas. WoS cannot cover everything in such wide areas as those: in fact, it only covers about 5% of the journals published. However, it covers the core titles, the journals which are most cited in each field each year.

This makes it an excellent first choice for exploring a subject. You get to see what has appeared in the main journals for that subject area, and it does not include anything that will be too obscure or hard to find. For undergraduate work, this is ideal! Researchers have the further option to search for papers which cite the key papers on their topic, to see how the field has progressed.

SEARCHING

The search form is a single search bar, like Google and LibrarySearch. What WoS does, even better than Google, is help you make better, more relevant searches by clicking on “Add another field”. This option allows you to build a really clever search string using combining words such as AND to make your results more specific, or OR to broaden your results. (NOT is also very handy if you find you’re getting a lot of irrelevant results, e.g. you’re searching for AIDS the disease, but you’re finding a lot on hearing aids, using NOT hearing will exclude those irrelevant results!)

An example search using the above combining terms:

WOS Example search

Note the quotation marks around “United Kingdom”, which specifies that we only want those two words together as a phrase.

Notice in the black banner at the top that we are searching “Web of Science core collection” but there is an orange arrow by it. Clicking that gives the option to search other databases, in particular Biosis Previews, which lets you search the largest single life science database from 1969 to 2008. You can also choose “All databases” to search them all at the same time. This makes WoS the core resource for biologists.

When the results appear, the FindIt@RHUL tab appears underneath each result. Click on this and it will take you to a LibrarySearch page to see if we have access to the full-text.

REFINING YOUR SEARCH RESULTS

Below shows the results for the above example search terms. Looking at them, you may notice that they really do not seem to be that relevant to my search terms. You’ll notice at the top of the results there is a ‘Sort by’ option and it shows that these results have been ordered by the date they were published, not by relevance to my search terms:

WOS Search results

By clicking on the drop down button and selecting ‘Relevance’, the results now listed appear more relevant to my search terms:

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On the left hand side, you can refine your results further by searching for an additional keyword within these results. On the right hand side, you can see there is a ‘Times Cited’ option. This shows you who else has referenced this article and may lead you to find other useful articles on the same topic.

(You can even sort the results to show those articles cited the most times, but beware: they may may not necessarily be cited for the right reasons! Other researchers may have found a flaw in the author’s research!)

SAVING YOUR SEARCHES

You can create yourself a free account to save your searches and relevant results. You can also send the results to a Reference Management Tool such as EndNote Online, RefWorks or other similar tools.

You’ll notice that above the results, there is a “Save to EndNote online” option. This is because the owners of Web of Science also own EndNote(!), so do not be put off if you prefer another reference management tool! Click on the arrow beside this option and you will find more options to save your results.

This is very much a whistle-stop guide to Web of Science and its various functions! If you have any questions about WoS or want to learn more, please do contact us: library@rhul.ac.uk

Happy researching y’all!

Resource of the Week: Eighteenth Century Drama

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Eighteenth Century Drama is a new resource at RHUL and contains a vast amount of primary sources and information relating to the theatrical world in the 18th Century.

There are 3 main parts to Eighteenth Century Drama:

  • The Larpent Collection of plays – collection of 2,500 plays submitted for license between 1778-1824, and the diaries of Larpent’s wife and professional collaborator, Anna.
  • The London Stage, 1660-1800 – this section documents theatrical performances in 18th Century London, compiled from playbills, newspapers and theatrical diaries.
  • Bibliographical Dictionary – lists London performers, from well -known names to little known musicians and performers.

This is a brilliant resource that really gives you an insight into the theatrical world of the 18th Century.

Access this resource via our eResources A-Z page. Find out more about this resource and take a tour here.

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Resource of the Week – Academic Writing Resources

Academic writing is a vital skill to master at University and the library has lots of resources available to help you develop this skill.

Books and Ebooks

The library has a large collection of books and ebooks relating to academic writing and other study skills. You can use Library search to see what titles we have available, or click on this link to see a list of useful titles.

The library has a wide selection of study skills books and can help with areas other than academic writing e.g. Critical thinking (click this link to access the ebook “Critical Thinking Skills: Developing Effective Analysis and Argument”), subject specific study skills books, critical reading and much more.

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Online Resources

We also have a number of online resources that can help with academic writing skills. One particularly useful resource is “Study Skills Success”, this has lots of useful information about various types of study skills e.g. academic writing, research and critical thinking. You can find a link to this resource via the library’s E-Resources A-Z list

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CeDAS – Centre for the Development of Academic Skills

CeDAS provides a great deal of support for all students in the development of their academic writing and oral communication skills. They offer workshops, lectures, courses and 1-1 tutorials. To find out more about this department, visit their website.

Resource of the Week – RefWorks

This week’s Resource of the Week is RefWorks.

RefWorks is a web-based tool that is free to use for undergraduates and taught postgraduates. It will help you to capture, save and organise references, create bibliographies in a range of difference styles that can be used in a range of Word processing tools. You can access it on- and off-campus, from any PC which has internet access.

How do I access it?

  1. Go to the Citing and Referencing Tab on your Subject Guide OR the Citing and Referencing Guide.
  2. Click on the RefWorks Link.
  3. Create your account:

When you first use RefWorks you will need to register. From off campus you may be required to enter a Group Code which is RWRoyalH. Then fill in your registration details as follows:

  1. Your name
  2. Your email address
  3. Choose your login name and password (we recommend using your RHUL IT username e.g. abcd123)
  4. Select your user type (e.g. undergraduate)
  5. Select your focus area (e.g. humanities)
  6. Select ‘register’ to finish

Using RefWorks

  • You can import information on resources from databases like Library Search, JSTOR, Science Direct and many others. Most databases will have an export to RefWorks option, for websites you can use the Ref-GrabIt tool.SendtoRefWorks
  • RefWorks creates a database of your references and you can search it, and organise it into Folders.
  • Capture Use RefWorks to generate an automatic bibliography
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  • You can also insert citations and reference directly into your assignment using the Write and Cite tool for Word

Further Help

  • Training sessions run throughout the year. The next session is on Friday 24th February at 13:10-13:50, Computer Centre, PC Lab 5
  • Email library@rhul.ac.uk, or contact your Information Consultant
  • Visit the RefWorks You Tube Channel for lots of video tutorials

Holocaust Memorial Day: the Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive

For Holocaust Memorial Day 2017, we would like to tell you about the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Visual History Archive. This resource came about due to the film Schindler’s List, and its importance cannot be overstated.

The Shoah Archive contains 50,000 interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust. Interviews are approximately two and a half hours long and some are supplemented with photographs, documents, and artefacts pertaining to the interviewee’s family and wartime experiences. Interviews are in a wide range of languages.
Interviewees speak on the following topics:

  • Jewish Survivors
  • Rescuers and Aid Providers
  • Sinti and Roma Survivors
  • Liberators and Liberation Witnesses
  • Political Prisoners
  • Jehovah’s Witness Survivors
  • War Crimes Trials Participants
  • Survivors of Eugenics Policies
  • Homosexual Survivors

As well as Holocaust testimonies, the Archive also includes testimonies from the Armenian Genocide that coincided with World War I, the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in China, the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the Guatemalan Genocide of 1978-1996 and the Cambodian Genocide of 1975-1979.

It’s a unique resource and researchers often come from far and wide to view the videos.

How do I use it?
This resource is only available on campus. There is a link on the Databases A-Z, under V, and once you’re on the site, you will need to create an account in order to log in, search, and view videos. Once on the website, you must register to create a personal username and password.

Searching the archive
Searching is easy, you can search on a topic, for a name, and use links in the videos to skip to particular sections relevant to your interests. The USC Shoah Foundation has a YouTube Channel with lots of information, but we’ve collected searching tips in this playlist.

Have you used the archive? Do you think it would be useful in your research? Contact library@rhul.ac.uk for more information, or leave a comment below.