Discovering Research: Discovering research

Search tools

• Library Search: Find all material held within the DMU libraries (print and online). Full-text links are provided to our subscribed content and locations for print material.
• Subject guides: Find relevant databases indexing books, journal articles and other material in a range of different subject areas.
• A-Z databases: An A-Z list of all of our databases
• E-publication finder Check to see if we subscribe to a specific online journal or online book
• Browzine: Virtually browse specific issues of a section of our subscribed journals

Use your single-sign on account to access all electronic resources

Find all search tools in our Resources Hub

• Research gate and academia.edu: Researchers may share versions of their published research where copyright permits using research networking services
• DORA: The university's repository provides access to research published by DMU researchers
• Open Access search engines: A collection of search tools providing access to published literature that is not behind a paywall, including Google Scholar

• Open Access Plugins: Browser extensions that automatically check for free copies of articles you've found online, including Google Scholar button and Unpaywall. Install from the Chrome Web store and the Add-ons for Firefox page.

• DORA: Repository of Theses written by DMU students
• EThOS: Provided by the British Library, download Theses written by PhD students at UK universities.  Register with the site for free access [Currently unavailable]
• Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations: List of international open access theses repositories  

See the Finding and using data page for information on data repositories and search tools.

• Interlibrary Loan: Request material that isn't held within our collections, to be obtained from the British Library or other sources
• British Library: Register for a readers pass to access the British Library's collection or use their reading rooms
• Sconul Access scheme: A reciprocal scheme allowing you to view the collections and use facilities at other university libraries in the UK and Ireland. Information on how to register is available on our website

• Search alerts: Keep up to date with the latest articles related to your search question. Most databases allow you to set up search alerts. See our subject guides or A-Z databases page for relevant databases in your subject area.
• International Conference Alerts: One of several alerting services for upcoming academic conferences
• Social media: Researchers may communicate their research via social media prior to publishing. This makes engagement with social media a very useful way of keeping up to date with the latest research and following key scholars.

• Find tools and guides to help you develop effective search skills using our finding information webpage, including:

FAQs for literature searching

Literature searching for systematic reviews

• Citation searching is another way of exploring the literature, allowing you to search forwards in time, i.e. who has that paper cited. Most databases include citation information, but the major citation database is Scopus (Access from our A-Z database page). Open source tools that also include citation information include Research Rabbit and Open Alex. 
• Evaluate the research that you find using our critical thinking toolkit