Library session: health and social care programmes

Home | See also the university subject guides for Health, Leadership in communities, Social Work, Woman and child abuse, Youth

What is an academic library for?

Most likely, you will come across the library when looking for:

You can use two libraries:

Where to start from?

Books

Textbooks are written in order to explain broad areas of knowledge, e.g. healthcare or social care. Normally, they discuss the main approaches and theories in a balanced manner. It is helpful to use a good textbook when studying a new subject (module). Read more about textbooks.

Not all books are textbooks. Many books, which are not textbooks, advocate a point of view based on the research done by the author. You do not have to agree with every book you read. As you develop your own knowledge and experience, you will get better at reading critically other people’s views.

Finding books

Use the library catalogues  to find books:

You may also find Google Books helpful if you do not know what books cover your topic of interest. It searches inside many printed and electronic books; however, it is usually not allowed to show their full text. Browsing some pages may be enough for your research. It may also give you an idea of what books to search for in the library catalogues.

Academic research

Academic research is interested in bigger-picture theories that could be applied across a range of products, companies, industries or even markets.

Normally, a researcher uses experiments, observations, surveys and other established methods to develop solutions, form conclusions, propose new theories etc. Before publication, the results of this research are reviewed by other specialists in the same field of knowledge. This peer-review process adds credibility to the research.

Knowledge is constantly developing, therefore some research conclusions accepted as correct earlier may be regarded wrong at a later date after more rigorous research has been done. Or the society, economy etc. may change and what was true years ago is not correct anymore.

Scholarly (academic) publications

Examples of academic research publications are scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journals, collections of conference papers (or conference proceedings), monographs and similar. These publications exist to report the outcomes of research produced by researchers.

There are many thousands of scholarly journals. Your lecturers may also call them academic journals.

Publishers aggregate these publications into collections, which are normally called databases. You may also come across phrases like "academic databases", "university databases" and similar - these all mean the same thing: collections of research publications and other content relevant to students and researchers.

Google Scholar tips

Google Scholar only searches for scholarly publications (i.e. academic research). It does not include trade (i.e. industry) publications, market research, company information etc.

Search for transformational leadership. How many results did you get?

Now search for this phrase in quotation marks (“transformational leadership”) and search. How many results did you get? Why is there a difference in the number of results?

The phrases that you want the search to retrieve exactly as typed (e.g. “relationship marketing” or “corporate social responsibility”) can be placed in quotation marks to run a phrase search. Google Scholar will not run separate searches for each word; it will search only for the whole phrase inside the quotation marks. Most academic databases understand phrase searching too.

The [PDF] (or similar) link on the right side of the screen indicates that the article can be accessed for free. To access it, click on the link.

The Cited by link will show more recent publications that used the current article as a source and acknowledged it in the reference list. Adding the word "review" to your search may help you find publications providing a broad critical overview of the established research on a particular topic.

Example 1. How to conduct research on inequality

Please use the Library Portal to find all the information resources you need for your assignment.

  


Click on London Met.


 

Under Online research resources, select Ebooks.


 

This way, you will open the Ebooks guide. Please use the Ebooks guide as follows.


 

Firstly, click on the link of the Reading Lists. This is where you will find the books that your lecturers recommend that you read for each module. Please explore the books in your reading lists for the Researching Inequality module. Start by reading the core book for the module.  


 

Secondly, search in the QAHE and the London Metropolitan University Library catalogues to find resources on your assignment for the above module.


 

QAHE Library catalogue

London Metropolitan University Library catalogue


 

Thirdly, look for information in Google Books. This is where you will find parts of the book, not the whole book, but you can still find information on your assignment topics:


 

After using the ebooks guide in the Library Portal, please use the Databases guide to find more resources:


  

Click on the Subject guides to find the databases.


 

Select your topic: Health and Social Care.


 

Then select Key subject collections.


 

Look for your topics in the databases available.


Lastly, look for academic articles in ejournals in the London Metropolitan University Library catalogue and Google Scholar.


  

The search terms you can use to research the topic of your assignment are:

Income inequality

Health inequality

Mental health

Obesity

Education

Crime and punishment

Please do not forget to use Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT) to combine or exclude keywords. For example, depending on the topic of your choice, conduct your research by looking for the following search terms:

Learning difficulties AND inequality

Inequality AND obesity

Learning difficulties AND obesity


Please use the London Metropolitan University guide on referencing.

Example 2. How to conduct research on social issues

Please use the Library Portal to find all the information resources you need for your assignment.


  

Click on London Met.


 

Under Online research resources, select Ebooks.


 

This way, you will open the Ebooks guide. Please use the Ebooks guide as follows.


 

Firstly, click on the link of the Reading Lists. This is where you will find the books that your lecturers recommend that you read for each module. Please explore the books in your reading lists for the Social Issues in Context module. Start by reading the core article for the module: Ellis, T and Silverstone, D (2012) ‘Legalise Drugs? in Ellis, T and Savage, S (Eds). Debates in Criminal Justice, London: Routledge pp149-184. 


 

Secondly, search in the QAHE and the London Metropolitan University Library catalogues to find resources on your assignment for the above module.


 

QAHE Library catalogue

London Metropolitan University Library catalogue


 

Thirdly, look for information in Google Books. This is where you will find parts of the book, not the whole book, but you can still find information on your assignment topics:


 

After using the ebooks guide in the Library Portal, please use the Databases guide to find more resources:


  

Click on the Subject guides to find the databases.


 

Select your topic: Health and Social Care.


 

Then select Key subject collections.


 

Look for your topics in the databases available.


Lastly, look for academic articles in ejournals in the London Metropolitan University Library catalogue and Google Scholar.


The search terms you can use to research the topic of your assignment are:

Cannabis legalisation

Cannabis prohibition

Please do not forget to use Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT) to combine or exclude keywords. For example, conduct your research by looking for the following search terms:

Cannabis legalisation AND UK

Cannabis prohibition AND Denmark


Please use the London Metropolitan University guide on referencing.