For Researchers

For Researchers

The Library can support researchers in many different ways.  Your Liaison Librarian can assist in planning and help you to get started with searching the literature. Services and resources available include:

• Databases and journals available to you both onsite and offsite
• Institutional digital repositories for scholarly material
• Inter-library loans for items we do not hold
• A range of information skills and IT training courses and guides and helpsheets
• If you do not see the training you are looking for please contact your Liaison Librarian
• CARES service (Clinical and Research Enquiry Service) - requests can be submitted online
• Access to RefWorks - a web-based reference management tool; allows you to import references from online resources and cite references whilst writing a document, for example, using Word.  A training workbook is available here
• Services to keep up to date with the research
• MyRI (Measuring Your Research Impact) A tutorial with 3 modules “Introduction to Bibliometrics”; “Track your Research Impact”; “Journal and Ranking Analysis”. Includes the tools you can use to find how many times your papers have been cited; which is your most highly cited paper; how to calculate your H-index
• Guidance for literature searching and appendices - prepared by South Central Healthcare Librarians Sep 2011
• Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions
• Campbell Collaboration Research Centre
• Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewers' Manual, 2011
• Systematic Reviews: CRD's guidance for undertaking reviews in health care Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, York University. 2009
• Prospero - International Prospective Register for Systematic Reviews

Access to other libraries

SGUL particpates in the SCONUL Access scheme. This enables research students, full-time and part-time postgraduates, distance-learning and placement students to borrow material from other UK HE libraries. Joining details are here.

Senate House Library in central London allows SGUL staff and students to use the Library free of charge which includes a range of electronic resources.  You must register first.

InforM25 consortium - Union List of Serials - search journal holdings of the constituent libraries of the University of London, Imperial College London and the University of Westminster. Check with the holding library for access details.

Copac National, Academic, and Specialist Library Catalogue gives free access to the merged online catalogues of many major University, Specialist, and National Libraries in the UK and Ireland, including the British Library.

SUNCAT (Serials Union Catalogue) for the UK research community is a free tool to help researchers locate serials held in the UK.

WorldCat the world's largest network of library content and services.

Social Media tools

A range of free tools are available dedicated to the needs of researchers. Some of the more popular ones are:

Manage and share references

http://www.connotea.org/ - from the Nature Group
http://www.citeulike.org/ - from Springer Publishing

To find, manage, and cite research from all types of sources from the browser:
Zotero - an add-on for the Firefox browser

To find, manage and share research papers:
http://www.mendeley.com

Social Networking

Academia.edu http://academia.edu
BiomedExperts - from Elsevier www.biomedexperts.com
ResearchGate www.researchgate.net
Graduate Junction www.graduatejunction.net

Related links

CMS - Centre for Statistics in Medicine
CONSORT - Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials
Equator network - resource centre for good reporting of health research
Faculty HSCS Research
Prepare for Academic Practice
PRISMA - Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses
REF2014
Research Information Network
Research Concordat
Research Councils UK
SGUL Joint Research Office (on SGUL Portal - requires SGUL login)
SGUL Research
Vitae