If you want to carry out research in the Library to find out what is available on a particular topic, you can do this using the Summon search engine, or you can search individual databases.
Summon
Summon is useful as it searches across most of the databases at the same time and retrieves items from all of the databases it searches. This means you only have to do one search and have one set of search results. See the Using Summon guide for help carrying out research using Summon.
Databases
As not all databases are searched by Summon, you may sometimes need to search individual databases to find the information you need.
Another reason why you might want to carry out your research within specific databases is to take advantage of the search functions within those databases. For example, the PsycInfo database allows you to search for research carried out using specific methodologies in Psychology, something which cannot be done as accurately using Summon.
See our Effective Searching of Databases guidance for guidance on how to search databases effectively.
Each database has a Help section that will help you search that specific database. There are also Database Guides for our key databases.
See our more detailed Research Guides here, which can also be accessed from your Study Programme Gateway.
- Business, Finance and Management
- Computing
- Marketing
- Law
- English
- History
- Philosophy and Theology
- Social Sciences
- Psychology
Carrying out research on the web
You may also wish to carry out research on the web. See our Web research guidance for help with this.