Navigating the University of Kentucky Libraries: A Comprehensive Guide to Resources and Services
The University of Kentucky (UK) Libraries offer a vast array of resources and services designed to support students, faculty, and staff in their academic and research endeavors. From personalized consultations with librarians to specialized study spaces and a wealth of online databases, UK Libraries are committed to fostering intellectual exploration and discovery.
Expert Guidance: Library Consultations and Literature Searches
Navigating the complexities of research can be daunting. UK Libraries provide personalized support through one-on-one or group library consultations. These meetings, available both in-person and online, offer guidance on:
- Refining research questions
- Discussing database searching methods
- Finding sources for assignments
- Consulting on reviews
Students, particularly those pursuing Master's or Ph.D. degrees, are encouraged to schedule a consultation to discuss their research needs. These consultations are designed to teach essential research skills. Staff and faculty can also request literature searches, with librarians conducting the search on their behalf.
The librarians also offer classes on various topics, including:
- Introduction to libraries and library services
- Basic searching
- Advanced searching
- Refining and generalizing a research question
- How to use EndNote
- Evidence-based public health
For those undertaking systematic reviews, UK Libraries offer various levels of service, detailed at libguides.uky.edu/systematicreview. Expert searchers and methodologists are available to advise on or participate in reviews.
Read also: Library Resources at Eastern Kentucky University
Key Databases and Search Tools
UK Libraries subscribe to hundreds of databases across various disciplines. Here's a guide to some of the most useful resources:
EBSCO Power Search: A starting point for research studies in social work practice and theory, offering access to approximately 500 journals from 1977 to the present. Combining this with PsycINFO provides a more comprehensive search. This database is produced by the National Association of Social Workers.
PsycINFO: The premier database for psychology, behavioral science, psychiatry, and mental health research. It includes journals (2,400), book chapters, dissertations, and videos dating back to the 1600s.
Sociological Abstracts: This database contains approximately 264 journals in sociology from 1975 to the present. It serves as a supplemental full-text database to Sociology Source Ultimate.
Statista: A platform that integrates statistical data on over 80,000 topics from over 22,000 sources. It offers direct access to quantitative data on media, business, finance, politics, and various other markets.
Read also: University of Georgia Sorority Guide
Google Scholar: A user-friendly interface for finding open-access scholarly articles. UK users can set up "Library Links" in their Google settings to identify their affiliation with UK Libraries, gaining access to additional online full-text articles.
AgeLine: This database indexes literature focusing on the population aged 50+ and issues of aging.
PubMed: Providing abstracts to articles in medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, allied health, and the pre-clinical sciences. Includes biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA): Offers cover-to-cover indexing and abstracting of over 400 journals, including key library and information science periodicals, and full-text coverage of over 170 journals. Subjects covered include automation, cataloging, censorship, circulation procedures, classification, copyright legislation, government aid, library associations and conferences, library equipment and supplies, personnel administration, and preservation of materials.
Academic Search Ultimate: A multi-disciplinary full-text database with more than 10,000 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. It was recently upgraded from Academic Search Complete.
Read also: History of the Block 'M'
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses: The official digital dissertations archive for the Library of Congress. Includes millions of searchable citations to dissertations and theses from 1861 to the present day together with over a million full-text dissertations. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and retrospective full-text coverage for older graduate works. It also includes content from the UK and Ireland. Contributions are added each year from 700 leading academic institutions worldwide, along with collaborative retrospective digitization of dissertations.
ERIC (Education Resources Information Center): Consists of two files: the Resources in Education (RIE) file of ERIC document citations and the Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE) file of journal article citations from over 1,000 journals. Both files provide abstracts. In addition, ERIC now contains over 2,200 ERIC Digest records that feature the full-text of the original document.
Scopus: An abstracting and citation database of peer-reviewed literature that contains over 22,000 titles from more than 5,000 publishers around the world, covering the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts & humanities. Scopus is a citation index which helps in determining the impact of articles and journals by highlighting which titles are most cited within a field.
Web of Science: Provides access to current and retrospective bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references found in over 8,600 scholarly science and technical journals covering more than 150 disciplines, as well as numerous other indexes. Web of Science offers Journal Citation Reports which shows you the total number of cites for a particular journal as well as the journal's impact factor. Web of Science provides cited reference searches which allow you to search for items that cite a particular article. This can be very helpful as it can lead you to more relevant works in your area of interest.
Streamlining Access: Browser Extensions
UK Libraries offer tools to simplify access to research materials:
LibKey Nomad: This browser extension consults UK Libraries' holdings data to identify if and where an article is available, providing one-click access to library collections.
EndNote Click: A free browser plugin that finds the best available PDF of an academic article while you browse, searching open databases and UK Libraries' subscriptions.
LibKey Nomad and EndNote Click complement one another, ensuring seamless access to research materials.
Dedicated Research Spaces
UK Libraries provide a variety of study spaces to suit different needs:
Thomas D. Clark Study: A space exclusively for graduate and professional students, located on the fifth floor of William T. Young Library.
Dissertation Rooms: Located on the fifth floor of William T. Young Library, these six multi-person study rooms are available for use by doctoral students writing their dissertations. These rooms may be shared by a maximum of 12 people. Doctoral students assigned to a room will be given a key and assigned a locker in which to store items.
Breckinridge Research Room: A quiet study space for students, faculty, and community visitors to use special collections materials, or for general quiet study. It is located on the second floor of the Margaret I. King Library in the Special Collections Research Center.
Workshops and Research Guides
UK Libraries actively engage with the university community through workshops and online resources:
Workshop Series: Every semester, UK Libraries host a workshop series dedicated to different aspects of research.
CPH Research Guide: A hub for public health information, containing links to relevant organizations, databases, journals, and eBooks.
tags: #university #of #kentucky #library #resources
