Class 3 Finding theses, conferences and research

publications

Session Overview

• How to find theses, conference proceedings and research papers

• Why these are important• Resources at LSE and further afield

Theses• LSE Library Catalogue for LSE theses

‘Dissertations Academic’ limit• Senate House Library – UoL theses• EThOS (UK)

• Open Access theses project form the British Library• Many UK universities participating• Digitized & Available• Open Access but not yet digitized – can be requested• Not yet digitized – payment requested. Do NOT

proceed. Use ILL.

Index to Theses

• UK and Ireland, 1715 onwards. Abstracts. • More complex searching than EThOS but

doesn’t automatically link to EThOS holdings so will need to check both.

• Updated regularly, but usually a time lag of three months between the university submitting the information to the database and it appearing in the Index.

Dissertations & ThesesCoverage• Searchable abstract and full text database of theses

covering social sciences and humanities subjects.• 1861 to the present • Includes doctoral, PhD and Masters theses. • North American universities as well as many other higher

education establishments worldwide. • Abstracts to most items, and links to full text versions are

provided in many cases. • LSE staff and students should note that full-text theses not

contained in this database can conveniently by obtained using the LSE Library Interlending service, http://www2.lse.ac.uk/library/services/idd/idd.aspx

More theses resources• LSE Library Delicious pages - http://

delicious.com/LSELibrary/theses• Institutional repositories – we will be

looking at these later in the class.• If you’re looking for theses from a

particular country, then why not look at the library catalogues of their National Library Service.

Conference Papers

• Why are they important?• May be articles in earlier form• Not always published• May be published just as name of

conference or just as e.g. 4th conference of…

• Sometimes published as journal articles

Conference resources at LSE

• ISI Conference Proceedings

• ZETOC• Subject focussed

databases may include details

• InterLibrary Loan

• Look for name of Holding body

• Delicious• British Library lists

conferences in their general catalogue

• Google Scholar

Open Access• Most universities now have archives

of freely available research available as ‘Open Access’

• What it is? http://www.jisc.ac.uk/openaccess; http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/guidance/authors.html

• http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/

Resources for locating OA materials• OAIster: http://oaister.worldcat.org/ • OpenDoar http://www.opendoar.org/search.php• LSE Research Online: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/

Versions & citing issues

Working / discussion papers• Ongoing research, public lectures ..• Increasingly published online

Where to locate them?• Library catalogues, e.g. NBER, EUI, Adelphi • Google Scholar• OpenDOAR • Delicious

http://www.delicious.com/LSELibrary/workingpapers

Conclusion

• Lots of different types of materials are available

• Finding details is only part of the process

• Leave enough time for access

             This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.