Intro to literature search at VIA Bibliotek
On the course you will learn to:
- use VIAs Biblioteksportal and selected databases
- sort your search results
- narrow and expand your search in Biblioteksportalen
- see whether the material is available and order it
- get hold of articles
- find Danish researchers and ongoing research within relevant research fields
- set up ”alerts” for new issues of journals and for desired topics
Det tager ca. 30 min. at gennemføre kurset.
Before you get started with searching, it is a good idea to consider the following:
- Choose a research problem you would like to search for literature about, and formulate it in a couple of sentences.
- Select central subject concepts that cover the aspects of your research problem.
- Which source types do you need (e.g.: statistics, textbooks, reports, professional or research articles)?
- Are you looking for Danish, Scandinavian and/or international literature?
- Which time period do you want to find literature from?
Step 1: Search in Biblioteksportalen (VIA Bibliotek)
Biblioteksportalen is your starting point for literature searching.
Here you can search for books and articles.
You can also find help with reference management, academic writing and searching for international research.
The video presents the library's website and searching in the library's system (Primo)
Exercises
- Search for “Drop ambitionerne” and find out whether the book is available at your local VIA Bibliotek
Go to: VIA Biblioteket - Use dictionaries:
VIA has a licence for a wide range of subject dictionaries. You find the dictionaries by starting in Menu and choosing “Mit fagområde”.
Choose Leksika og ordbøger under Tværfaglige ressourcer here: Ordbogen.com.
Search for klasseledelse and see which dictionaries you get entries from.
Step 2: Get hold of articles/books
On Biblioteksportalen you can search for and get access to a large quantity of articles and books.
If you do not manage to find – or get access to – a desired source or text, you can place an order by filling in a form under “Fandt du ikke det du søgte?”:
You can get access to over 80 Scandinavian journals in Scandinavian University Press .
Here you can open the articles in PDF format: https://www-scup-com.ez-aaa.statsbiblioteket.dk/
Exercises in Biblioteksportalen
- Check the access options for the Danish article: Detektivarbejde – smerter og demens (Search the title in the search field)
- Find the pdf file for the article: How Do You Use Problem‐Based Learning to Improve Interdisciplinary Thinking? New Directions for Teaching and Learning (Search the title)
If you are not on a VIA address, you need remote access with WAYF (Where are you from). Here you must choose your institution
a. VIA University College
b. Username: Your full VIA mail xxxxxx@via.dk
c. Password: same as for your VIA mail and studienet
Step 3: Find research
Research is published as articles, books and reports. There is not one single place where you can find it all.
Forskningsportal.dk covers published literature from Danish universities, university colleges and other research institutions. You will find, for example, scholarly articles, PhD theses, book chapters, presentations from conferences and teaching notes. You can narrow your search to a specific institution and a specific document type. The video shows a short example of a search in Forskningsportal.dk
On Google scholar it is easy to find (too) much information about your topic. You should therefore make a search string with one bracket for each topic aspect, where synonyms are combined with OR, and the topic aspects (the brackets) are combined with AND.
For a project about the experience of security in palliative care, you could make this search on Google Scholar:
(trygghet OR tryghed) AND (palliativ OR hospice) AND (opplevelse OR oplevelse)
If you want to find texts in several languages – you must use keywords from several languages.
In the video below you can see which other databases you can use to find research literature etc.
The video presents a selection of interdisciplinary databases that you can use to find research literature.
Exercises: Find a researcher working on a selected topic:
- Search in Forskningsportalen (local data) for “online vejledning”.
- Under Persons you can see who has published on the topic (Contributers/Individuals): Who has published the most?
- See the complete publications for a particular person: Select the person you want and choose Apply.
You can also sort by Organisations, if for example you want to see research from VIA University college.
Step 4: Keep yourself up to date (alerts)
Du kan modtage indholdsfortegnelser pr. mail, når der kommer et nyt nummer af dit favorittidsskrift. Mailen rummer links til artiklerne i fuld tekst. Du kan også få en mail, når der publiceres nye forskningsartikler inden for dit fagområde.
Follow Scandinavian journals
Scandinavian University Press contains 86+ Nordic journals. Choose a journal and “Meld dig på E-post varsling”.
It is also possible to save a search and be notified when new articles are published on the topic.
You can/should search using Danish, Swedish and Norwegian words.
See the guide to setting up Alerts at Scandinavian University Press:
https://vejledninger.via.dk/a/1631084-scandinavian-university-press
Follow an international journal
If you would like to follow a particular journal, you can sign up for email alerts on the journal's website:
Follow research within your topic focus:
Du kan kontakte biblioteket for rådgivning ift. andre kilder for emneovervågning inden for dit fokusområde.
You can also monitor journals using the tool BrowZine. In BrowZine new articles become available earlier than you can see them via EBSCO, and you avoid emails in your inbox.
Exercise: Scandinavian University Press (formerly Idunn):
- Choose a journal in Scandinavian University Press and set up E-postvarsling for it
- Do a search in Scandinavian University Press and set up ”E-postvarsling for søgetreff” under ”Lagrede søk”