LIS Liaison: Your Research Partner

The Liaison Librarians are your ideal research partner, providing a range of services, resources, and dedicated support for Researchers. For further information or to discuss how we can help contact the team or your Liaison Librarian.

Finding Research

We can help you to identify specialist information resources and special collections in your subject area. The Online Catalogue is the starting point for finding books, journal articles, and conference papers and there are also a number of key research databases for your subject, available from the Subject Support pages. Your Liaison Librarian can offer advice and guidance on effective searching, how to get the most of the University’s online resources, as well as sources such as Google Scholar.

In addition, we can point you to valuable online resources such as the Help for Researchers from the British Library which provides subject specialists in your area of research.

Also, by looking on Index to Theses which covers theses, accepted for higher degrees by British and Irish Universities, and the University’s own Intellectual Repository, WIRE, you can get an idea of what has been done in your area of research already.

There are also a number of relevant advice pages for help with Referencing systems and using our Reference Management system RefWorks.

Keeping Up-To-Date

When doing research it is important to up-to-date in your area and there are a range of services available for current awareness. We can offer you advice on creating email alerts from subject databases or setting up RSS feeds from services such as ZETOC or JournalTOCs. These are useful for tracking a research subject and staying up-to-date with current papers published in scholarly literature with international coverage.

We can also advise you on a number of sources which will help you stay up to date in your field, such as the Management & Business Studies Portal from the British Library which has collections for management research and their Research Information Centre which provides a web-accessible suite of tools and resources to support all aspects of the research lifecycle and is currently aimed at Scientists.

Training and Development

LIS offer focussed workshops helping research students and staff to develop information and research skills. These include: information resources for research, keeping up-to-date in your subject area and managing your references. These can be arranged on request by contacting LISLiaison@wlv.ac.uk.

You may also take advantage of the workshops offered by the Skills for Learning programme.

Other help is available from sources such as the Learning Research Skills site from the British Library.

Using Other Libraries

Our Inter-Library Loan system allows you to request books and research papers not available through the University’s online subscriptions. Theses may be obtained via the British Library’s service EThOS. You can search a range of national and international library catalogues via WorldCat and gain access to other libraries via the Sconul Access scheme.

REF and Where to Publish

We can help offer you advice regarding the process of depositing your research papers in the University’s Intellectual Repository WIRE

Your Liaison Librarian can advise on obtaining Journal Citation Reports from the Web of Science database, which can help with bibliometrics and aid in the selection of journals to publish in. Advice is also available on how to collaborate with other researchers and publish your work in open access journals, and create a ResearcherID profile

Open Access Search Engines

OAIster - A union catalogue of digital resources, including many institutional repositories.

Scientific Commons - Search engine for scientific knowledge freely accessible to the public.

Directory of Open Access Journals - A one stop shop for users to Open Access Journals.

Researchers' Suite and Reading Room

There is a dedicated Researchers' space on the first floor of the Harrison Learning Centre. This area provides an ideal space to study, relax and get together with fellow researchers. It is equipped with presentation facilities, comfortable seating and a kitchen area.

Useful Links

Forms and Guidelines for Research

Institute for Learning Enhancement

Researchers Staff Development Programme

Web of Knowledge: ResearcherID

ResearchGate