Listed below is a selection of shelfmarks for business related subjects:
An increasing number of books are now being made available with open access. Many open access books can be discovered through Library Search but you can also look at the collections listed below:
Scholarly books can contain comprehensive accounts of research or scholarship, historical data, overviews, experts' views on themes/topics. They are particularly useful when you require background information and related research on a topic, when you want to put your topic in context, identify key theories and key researchers in a subject area.
What books are not good at is in researching current topics as it can take years to write and publish books. So whilst they can give you a good overview of a research area it is important to bring the research up to date by consulting other sources such as journals and newspapers.
The term journal can mean either:
Peer-reviewed: articles in these journals are assessed by a panel of experts and subject specialists before the article is allowed to be published. Most research published in peer-reviewed journals is highly referenced allowing you to judge the quality of the research yourself. They are very thorough taking a long time to research, write and review; so whilst they may not mention the most current developments they will look at a subject in very specific detail.
Professional/Trade: articles are written by experts in a particular profession or trade and will cover current topics and trends within that field. Content will be catered to other professionals so will assume inside knowledge. Articles may have a reference list.
Popular magazines: examples include the Economist and Spectator and their articles are written by reporters for a general audience. They are published on a more regular basis so the articles will not be as well researched as articles in peer-reviewed journals but they will be more current, reporting on recent events. They are rarely referenced making a judgment on quality difficult.
Use journals to find:
useful information, research and discussions
different viewpoints from different authors
relatively current information, journals are published quicker than books.
Popular magazines are a great way to develop your commercial awareness. You should be using peer-reviewed journals in your assignments to build on knowledge gathered from books
