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School of Chemistry and Physics: Databases

Research Data Management

Databases: information resources at your fingertips

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Using GoogleScholar as an international index to scholarly literature

GoogleScholar is an international index to resources in the public domain so it indexes journal articles, books and their contents, theses, and a range of formal documents. The full text can only be provided if it is free. However, if UKZN has a subscription to a journal, clicking on the article title will take you to where the full text is located.

 

Google Scholar Search

What to do if a journal is not available at or via UKZN?

You can use the Interlibrary Loan facility - there is an office in each campus library. Request the article online (or send an email with all the details) and the ILL staff will try and find a library within South Africa that can provide a copy of the article. The email address is ill@ukzn.ac.za.

What is a database?

Databases index and organise references to journal articles, newspaper articles, chapters in books, conference papers and in some cases, theses and dissertations. Some databases also include the full text of the articles. Databases usually include many publications over many years and are often subject specific. Most academic literature is not freely available so libraries pay for access to journals via databases.

This is one of the most useful ways of finding articles when you do not know in which journals articles are published.

On the UKZN Library website is an alphabetical list of all databases as well as lists by subject area. (under the Electronic Resources option)

For South African resources use the SABINET Online databases (choose from the list under the tab 'Search all')

For international databases try:

 

    

Off campus access to databases

Most publishers and suppliers do not allow free off campus access. You will need to authenticate yourself as a legitimate member of UKZN. Click on the off campus facility. Once you have authenticated yourself you will be presented with a list of those databases that allow off campus access. There is no need for any passwords.

It is best to get to the UKZN site from off campus via Firefox.

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