Research and Study Resources

Links to useful websites or software that might help you in your studies. Click the icons below to jump to the relevant section...:


e-bookse-JournalsNewcastle College Library LinksSoftwareWebsites
e-Bookse-JournalsLibrary ResourcesSoftwareWebsites


If you can recommend any other resources, please let me know on the Comments page of this blog.

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Newcastle College Library Links

Library Catalogue Online - Browse what books we have in Newcastle College Library, reserve titles or renew the items you currently have out on loan. Helpsheet.

Newcastle College Library Handbook 2013-14 - A flip-book version of our Library Guide for students, with details of our branches, services, procedures and opening hours. A pdf version can be downloaded here.

Online Subject Guides - Details of, and access to, the specific e-resources and books for the Subject Area you are studying.

Password Reset - Change your Newcastle College IT/Blackboard password or unlock your account over the internet, without the need to come into college. Helpsheet.

Referencing and Plagiarism - Newcastle College's guides to Harvard Referencing.

SMART Skills - Our Study Methods And Research Techniques resources - videos, quizzes, guides and free software to help you with all aspects of academic work, from effortlessly delivering Presentations to efficiently Searching the Web; writing Dissertations to Note taking and Speed Reading; compiling Reports to composing Essays.

What's New? - Ensure that you're always up-to-date by reading the latest news and analysis from your Area of Study through our real-time updating Subject Feeds.


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Useful Websites for Research

DataMonitor* - Comprehensive business reports on thousands of industries and multinational companies, including SWOT analyses, market segmentation and financial breakdowns. (To log on, select "DataMonitor 360" from the dropdown menu, then "Newcastle College" from the list of subscribers).

Dogpile - Search Google, Yahoo and Bing all at the same time.

IHS* - Full text access to British Standards, ISOs and legislation for the construction, engineering, process and electronics industries.

Infomine - Scholarly internet resource collections (results without a $ sign are open access).

Legislation.gov.uk - UK Laws, Statutory Instruments, Acts of Parliament and other legislation, 1267-present.

NationMaster - A huge database of world statistics, everything from crime, GDP, population and life expectancy to winners of the Eurovision Song contest since 1963 and the number of rollercoasters in each country!

OAIster - Search engine of millions of Open Access digital resources, including scanned books, journal articles, theses, manuscripts and AV files.

Scirus - The most comprehensive scientific research tool on the web. Scirus allows researchers to search for not only journal content but also scientists' homepages, courseware, pre-print server material, patents and institutional repository and website information.

UK National Data - Datasets and publications from the British Government on Business, Health, Education, Crime, Employment, Housing and more.

UK Open Access Repositories - Access to academic research and information curated by UK Universities. The Worldwide version is available here.

WolframAlpha - WolframAlpha introduces a fundamentally new way to get knowledge and answers - not by searching the web, but by doing dynamic computations based on a vast collection of built-in data, algorithms and methods.

World Newspapers - Free access to national and international news sources - search for newspapers by country and magazines by subject.

(* You will need to log on to these resources with your Newcastle College Username and Password.)

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e-Book Links

Amazon Kindle - Free books, both out-of-copyright popular classics and time-limited Special Offers for your Kindle. You can set up Notification Alerts here.

Calibre e-book Management - Free software which will find the cheapest prices for any e-book you might want, and convert formats (including Kindle) so you can view the books on any e-book reader.

ebrary* - Access to our database of electronic books covering a wide range of subject areas.

Gateshead Libraries - Login to Gateshead Libraries' e-book collection. (Join the library online here).

Google Books - Search and preview millions of works from libraries and publishers across the world. NB not always full text.

iBooks - Free app for your iPhone/iPad through which you can download titles (some of which are free) from its iBookstore.

MyiLibrary* - Electronic versions of our most popular print books in the library. (Select "Newcastle College" from the Institutional Access list then log in with your College Username and Password).

Newcastle City Library - Download free e-books and audio books from Newcastle Libraries Digital Collection - you will need to download this software to view e-books, and to install this package to play the audio files. (Join Newcastle City Libraries here).

Project Gutenberg - Free electronic access to thousands of out-of-copyright works of fiction and non-fiction. The list of the most downloaded titles (updated daily) can be an interesting place to start browsing.

South Tyneside Libraries - Details of how to use South Tyneside Libraries' e-book collection. (Download an Application Form to become a library member).

WH Smith Kobo - Special offers on fiction and non-fiction ebooks (ranging from free to heavily discounted titles) which can be read on most Smartphones, tablets or desktop computers when you download the free Kobo App.



(* You will need to log on to these resources with your Newcastle College Username and Password.)

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e-Journal Links

E-journals for all Subject Areas - from the Directory of Open Access Journals.

E-journals for all Subject Areas* - from EBSCO Academic Search Elite.

E-journals for all Subject Areas - from the Open Access Journal Search Engine.

E-journals, Magazine and Newspaper articles for all Subject Areas* - from Gale Cengage Databases.


E-journals for Arts and Humanities courses - from JURN.

E-journals for Biomedical and Life Science courses - from PubMed Central.

E-journals for Business / Management courses* - from Emerald Management Xtra. (After logging on, select "Advanced Search" then "My Subscribed Content" to access our collection).

E-journals for Engineering, Mathematics and Computing courses - from TechXtra.

E-journals for Humanities and Social Sciences* - from JSTOR.

E-journals for Sports Studies* - from SportsDiscus.

E-journals for Teaching and Education courses* - from Taylor and Francis. (After logging on, select "Advanced Search" then "Only content I have full access to" to access our collection).


(* You will need to log on to these resources with your Newcastle College Username and Password.)

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Software and Online Resources

Audacity - Free, open source software for recording and editing audio. You can "capture" sound from your PC or the internet, and even make your own podcasts. (To export your projects in MP3 format, download the LAME code here).

Dreamspark - Free professional-level developer and design tools from Microsoft to support technical design, technology, maths, science, IT and engineering activities.

Evernote - Save, sort, search and sync your notes, web quotes, pictures and ideas in the Cloud with this free software.

Gliffy - Easily create professional-quality flow charts, Venn diagrams, org charts and technical drawings with this free online package.

IF This THEN That - Set up an account so that certain "Actions" automatically happen whenever specific "Triggers" occur (eg IF rain is forecast THEN you get an email alert).

Microsoft Fix-it - Automated, online solutions to common IT and software problems.

Office Timeline - Free Microsoft Powerpoint plug-in for creating timelines and Gantt charts.

OpenOffice - Free, high quality alternatives to Microsoft's Office programs such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

Paper Rater - Plagiarism Checker and online proofreading tool.

Screencast-o-matic - Record videos of what's happening on your computer screen with this free online tool - great for sharing demonstrations.

Skydrive - 25GB of free online storage space that you can access from anywhere with an internet connection.

Software4Students - Cut price software (eg Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Edition for less than £40, RRP £429.99) for anyone studying at a UK college or university.

VLC Media Player - Play any multimedia files, plus CDs, DVDs and streams, with none of the Codec errors that you often get on Windows Media Player.

XMind - Free mindmapping and brainstorming software.

Zanran - A search engine for data and statistics.

Zotero - This Referencing tool not only constructs Harvard standard citations for you, it will let you import the Reference List directly into MS Word or Open Office.




Bookmark this page - more resources are added all the time!