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Library Induction: Information & Study Skills

Searching the wider literature

Image of a book with celestial clouds.

  • Undergraduates and taught postgraduates: you're likely to get higher grades if you use additional academic literature rather than just rely on lecturers' reading lists. Through timetabled training sessions with your subject librarian and online/in-person enquiry support, the Library can help you develop strong skills in searching for literature. These are transferable skills sought by many employers in today's information-rich world.
     
  • All students and staff: To search for further books, journal articles and other items, you can search the Library Catalogue. However, it's best to also search at least one or two library databases as these cover wide ranges of quality literature and enable you to search more precisely. To access our databases (and corresponding help guides), refer to the 'Search the Literature' pages within resources for your subject.
     
  • Guide: how to do a literature search: searching beyond a reading list.

Requesting items from other libraries

When researching a topic, you may find out about items that are not held in our Library collection. You may be able to obtain these from another library by using our Inter-Library Loans service.  

Training, tutorials & other support

In addition to the library's training sessions on using the Library Catalogue, literature searching and referencing, please note the the following sessions and resources provided by the Library and other departments:
 

  • Skills Training: workshops for all students provided by the Student Union.
  • Information Skills for Researchers: the library delivers a wide range of sessions in this programme. They're designed for research postgraduates and academics, and they cover literature searching, finding statistics, data management, open access publishing, copyright and referencing/plagiarism: register for a session.
  • Skills Centre: guides to writing, understanding feedback and other academic skills. One-to-one support also offered.
  • Mathematics Resources Centre (MASH): guides, workshops and drop-in support for mathematics and statistics enquiries.
     

Visiting other libraries

  • Higher education libraries: SCONUL Access and other schemes allow University of Bath students and staff to visit other libraries in the UK and Republic of Ireland (either for reference purposes only, or to borrow books). 
     
  • National and public libraries: check online to find out which public libraries are available and what services they are offering in your local area.

Use Library Hub Discover to search across about a wide range of UK national, academic and specialist libraries.