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Civil Engineering

Journals

Journals are also known as periodicals.  They are an important resource because they:

  • are published on a regular basis
  • contain the most up to date scholarly research in their subject
  • tend to be shorter and discuss the subject in more detail than books

Some examples: Lancet; Nature; Journal of Black Studies; Art History; Journal of World Literature.

 

Don't rely solely on Google or even Google Scholar for your research!  Findit@Bham is a good place to start looking for good quality journal articles, but it is more efficient if you use one of the bibliographic databases available in your subject.  These will find relevant journal articles and sometimes also books, reports, working papers and conference proceedings.

Some databases will give direct full-text access to the articles.  Others will provide an index and abstract (a short summary) of the article. 

If the full text is not available in the database, there will be a FindIt@Bham            link to check if we have the full text available from elsewhere. 

Recommended Databases

Finding databases

Libraries and Learning Resources subscribe to a vast array of electronic resources of relevance to all subjects. These include, but are not limited to:

  • bibliographic databases;
  • historical sources; 
  • original texts; 
  • newspapers; 
  • statistics;
  • multi-media resources.

The 'Using FindIt@Bham to search for databases' video tutorial outlines how to search for databases relevant to you:

If you know the name of the database you wish to access, enter the name of it into the search bar and select the Databases button underneath the search bar. For example, to search for the database Medline:

Alternatively, you can use FindIt@Bham to explore the databases we have available by clicking on the Database A-Z tab at the top of the screen.

FindIt@Bham's Database A-Z search bar with Database A-Z option highlighted.

To explore the databases relevant to your subject area, select a subject from the Resource Subject filter on the left-hand side.

Browse by subject and type filtering options with Resource Subject hihglighted.

If you are looking for a specific type of resource, for example Newspapers, use the Resource Type filter on the left-hand side. 

Browse by subject and type filtering options with Resource Type highlighted.

Access to databases

Once you select a database, it will show you the catalogue record and description of it. Read this description carefully the first time you use it as it may include specific information on how to access it using a special password, or the need to register with the provider to gain access.

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