Popping up to help you Discover more

You’ve just received the instructions for your first assignment and been told by your lecturer that you need to find “academic sources”, “evidence” or “reliable information” to inform your arguments and produce your work. What do you do next? Many of you might instinctively reach for Google as the only source of information you know, but did you know the Library offers a far better search tool you can use to find high quality academic information for your assignments.

The Discovery Service finds quality academic content not available to anyone outside the university: resources your lecturer will love to see you have read. Most academic journal articles, industry data analyses and clinical evidence is simply not available on the open internet. These premium resources are valuable and the Library has paid a lot of money for you to be able to use them while you are studying with us. Google also cannot see that most of them exist!

Picking the best tool for the job

Google plays a neat trick when you search the internet. It finds a scattering of posts on topics that might be relevant and because it finds some content that is relevant to your search, it makes it look, quite convincingly, like it is finding everything on the topic. Only, it isn’t. That’s why the Library offers the Discovery Service – a search platform with powerful tools that looks and feels a lot like Google but that finds only high quality academic information from across our expensive premium academic information resources.

For many people, the Discovery Service might seem scary and new. That’s the time to sit down with a librarian and ask for a free expert demonstration of how to search for articles and other evidence for your assignments. Bring an actual assignment so we can make the search completely relevant and useful for you and then email you instructions to replicate the search!

Stop by a pop-up

You can always ask at the Library Help Desk (near the Library reception) between 11am – 3pm Monday-Friday or even chat online 24/7 (local librarians will answer between 9am – 4.50pm, Monday-Friday and we always check what you are being told for correctness and completeness if our American colleagues pick up your chat at other times). Next week, we are also popping up in the Atrium and showing anyone who is interested how to get started with the Discovery Service. Bring your coursework, bring your friends, or just bring yourself between 1-3 pm every day Monday-Friday, 25-29 November, and get a free introduction to how the Discovery Service can help you find research evidence that your lecturers will love to see you use. 

The next week, we’ll be bringing back our incredibly popular referencing pop-ups, where we can teach you how to grasp the basics of referencing and teach

What: Introduction to the Discovery Service – get started using quality Library information resources

When: 1-3 pm every day, Monday – Friday, 25-29 November

Don’t miss next week’s APA (7th edition) referencing popups – the ideal follow up to finding the articles you want to use!