Changes to Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) recently unveiled a new look and new features. ODNB is one of the best resources for anyone interested in the history and culture of Britain and its former Empire. Here are a few changes worth knowing.

Login

If you have logged in via the Library you do not need to login for a second time. The 'Sign In' options on the left-hand side are for creating a personal account with the ODNB; it doesn't unlock the content for you. (It could be a good idea to create an account however, as it will allow you to save searches and annotations.)

ODNB already knows I am from Leicester.

There are more ways to browse the content.

You can now browse biographies by Occupation and Religious Affiliation. For example, browsing by Occupation > Law and crime > Crimes of deception reveals 90 biographies of forgers, fraudsters and swindlers. This includes the intriguing entry for "Carter, Henry [Harry] (1749 1829), smuggler and Methodist preacher". https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/38740

Reference groups, reference lists and themed essays

The contextual material is now listed under Tools and Resources > Themes. Here you can find essays on historical groups like 'Salem witches and their accusers'; authoritative lists, such as Captains of the England cricket team; and broader contextual essays e.g. Britons in south-east Asia.

More Advanced search options

You can now search the biographies on many more criteria than before, including: aristocratic title, organisation, archive and wealth at death.

You can also search the entries by Life Event e.g. Baptism or Burial. This will be useful for anyone interested in families and demography.

One small plea to the team at OUP: please could we have the link to the advanced search on the home page!

Download references and cite

Clicking on the Cite option near the title of an entry will create a copy-able citation in APA, MLA or Chicago. There are also options to download references for RefWorks, EndNote and Zotero.

Searching ABS Journals in Business Source Premier

In Business and Management Studies, researchers undertaking a literature review sometimes search across a defined group of journals. This is a way of focusing the literature search to make the results more relevant to the questions in hand. Groups are often chosen from the Association of Business Schools (ABS)'s Academic Journal Guide . Read more how about how they put together the guide here . There are several ways to search across ABS journals. Here is how to do it in Business Source Premier, a leading literature database for this subject area. 1. Login into the ABS journal guide. If you have never used it before you will need to create an account. 2. You can use the guide to draw up a group of journals either by using the Rankings information or the Fields. Fields divides up the journals into categories of research focus e.g. Accounting, Finance etc. In this example we will use the Fi...

You can now export multiple citations from Google Scholar

You can now export multiple citations from Google Scholar if you have a Google Account. Go to Google Scholar and sign into your Google Account. Conduct your search. Click on the Star icon (Save) under each reference you want to export. Then click on My Library in the top, right of the screen. Select all the references and click on the Export option: Click the Star/Save Icon Choose Export Option To Export into EndNote Choose the EndNote option. Open the EndNote file that is created. The references should automatically import into EndNote. To Export into RefWorks Choose the RefMan option. Save the RIS file that is created. Login to your RefWorks account. Click on the plus (+) button. Choose Import References. Add the RIS file you just saved. Set the file import option to RIS - Reference Manager. Click import and your references will be imported. --- Good Practice Tip: Always check that all the reference information you need has been...

How to find a Journal Impact Factor

What is a Journal Impact Factor? An impact factor is a measurement provided by Thomson Reuters looking at the average number of citations articles in a particular journal receives. It is calculated by: The number of times that all items published in a journal in the previous two years (e.g. 2012 & 2013) were cited by indexed publications during the year of interest (e.g. 2014) divided by The total number of "citable items" published by that journal in those two years (e.g. 2012 & 2013) Finding a Journal Impact Factor Go to Web of Science In Web of Science - Click on the link at the top of the page for Journal Citation Reports. Start typing the name of the journal and choose from the list that appears: Remember - not all journals are indexed by the Journal Citation Reports, so not all journals have an impact factor. You will then get an option to click on the Journal Profile, which includes the Impact Factor: Find th...

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